To The Core! (How to Climb a Tree)
by tronderjenta
Summary: AU. When Minato and his friends decide to drive to The Core for the holiday, their car decides it is a better idea to shut down in the middle of nowhere. As they manage to get to the closest town to fix it, they meet ... well, probably just another girl Minato would want nothing to do with. Though in the end, things would turn out both better and worse than he imagined.
1. I: The Beginning

_Hey guys!_**  
**

_This is the improved version of my first story, To The Core. I recommned you read this one rather than the other, 'cause the story's still completely the same, just with better and slightly longer chapters :)_

_I thank all of you who left reviews for my first story, I really appreciate it! (I deleted it, though, since I find this version better.)  
_

_All chapters can be found in one file in my gallery on gatasseimann. deviantart. com, if you'd prefer that._

_Enjoy!_

_**Just some information before we start:**  
_

_**The story begins in 1977, in Southmore, Australia. All cities are invented, because I have no clue about any Australian city's history or background. I have invented a few characters of my own, I believe only three characters in this story is actually original from the Naruto series.  
**_

_**This is a realistic story, which means there are no ninjas, magic or demon foxes and such, the only thing making wonders in this story,  
**_

_**is alcohol.  
**_

_**Mostly.  
**_

* * *

**I: The Beginning**

"Deal."

"Sold."

The elder shook hands with the tallest of them with a brief nod.

A second man, a blonde one, jumped in the car, and with a bit effort and a final yell of joy and excitement, the engine was running. The four young men positioned themselves in the well used and rusty Volkswagen Transporter and rolled out of the garage and on to the road.

"Great!" Keigo grinned from the passenger seat. "Just a couple of days at the workshop, and it'll be as good as new!"

Keigo Kutzusawa, the shortest of them all, was the bassist of their pretty unofficial band. He had short, brown hair and big, blue eyes, and a basically round appearance, highlighted by his twentyfour-seven-smile; possibly the most cheerful guy in the crew.

Chad Lee, the drummer, was the one you would refer to as the handsome, but slightly creepy one. He was the tallest, raging over them all with his 185.5 centimetres, and he had messy, black hair that reached down to his shoulders. He did not bother cutting it very often; neither did he bother shaving, so he constantly had black stubbles on his face. Though his dark brown eyes he used to gaze around with was enough for most girls to forget.

James Hamilton was their helpful, self-proclaimed manager. His tall figure, brown eyes, glasses and the long, brown hair tied in a small ponytail all screamed 'smart-ass', and for good reason; he was intelligent, laid-back and could do pretty much anything.

And then there was Minato Namikaze. The man you also could call the handsome, but in this case the one you will never get. Minato was possibly more laid-back than James, never made any plans unless necessary and pretty much did whatever he felt like. He had blonde, messy hair, azure eyes and a skinny physique, yet not too lanky; he still had muscles.

The four of them were taking advantage of James' winter vacation to go to The Core, a small city on the west coast. They had made a quite good deal with the old man who lived next to Minato, and by that getting their hands on a van they could drive to the west with. Only James went to school; Keigo was planning on it, but did not get in at the first attempt. Chad dropped out because he did not find the subject 'being a teacher' interesting enough, and Minato ... well, he did not feel like going to school just yet. So they all worked up some money, waited for James to finish his last exam, and now the time had come.

They all lived in the small town Southmore. It was pretty intimate there; people pretty much knew everyone, and as no one were particularly rich, they were a relaxed, genuinely happy and hardworking people. Minato, Chad and Keigo had since childhood played music, and during their teens they had decided to get together and make something out of their talent. They were pretty popular too, at least back home; their music could not have travelled too far out of Southmore, as not a lot of people came by. Now they were in their twenties (though Minato still looked like a teenager) and still played music; not for the sake of fame, but because they liked it.

The boys talked and laughed all the way to the workshop, and when they arrived after a three minutes drive, the van started to slow down by itself. Minato (who had _not_ come all this way to be stuck outside the garage) shifted to second gear, punched the dashboard, and once the motor roared again, he hit the gass pedal and rushed in. He made a sudden stop to prevent any damage from happening and shouted: "Made it!"

"Fuck you, Minato," Chad mumbled and punched the blonde in the back of his head. "Stop making a big deal out of shit."

"I never make a big deal out of shit, I don't think I ever gave a damn," Minato stated as he got out of the van.

"That's about right," came a voice from inside the workshop. It was Keigo's father, with a screwdriver in his hand and a stated look on his face, which might had its origin from him almost being hit by the van had it not been for Minato making a sudden stop.

"Oh, hi, mr. Kutzusawa," Minato smiled and seemed to have just noticed the man.

Mr. Kutzusawa sighed, but decided to not care. "See you got your deal, alright?"

"Yep," Keigo said proudly. "It needs some fixing up, it's pretty ... rusty, but we'll get it going. How many days do you think? 2? 3?" Mr. Kutzusawa examined the van – the rust, the tired engine, the non-existing interior.

"It does need some fixing, alright ..." he said with his eyes on the engine. "I'll get the engine up, you do the rest. Should be done in a few days, yeah."

"Great," Minato said from the back door and pulled off the only curtain in the van with a rough move.

"Careful," James said warily.

Minato chuckled. "I think you could've said that when we got in and drove it here. This thing could fall apart just by poking it."

"Well, we've got all we need here," Keigo said slowly as he rummaged the lockers in the workshop. "We have enamel, paint, tools ..."

"I think we gotta wash this after we get all the rust off," Chad said as he followed a spider inside the van with his eyes.

"Alright, let's start, then!" Minato pronounced happily, grabbed a tool and started looking for the worst piece of rust on the old car. The others followed his move, and while Mr. Kutzusawa took a look at the engine, they removed the rust. It took a pretty long time to finish the work, but as the afternoon came, they could consider themselves done.

"My arms are aching," Keigo complained, but smiled as he sat down on the concrete floor. "Hey, Dad, do you have that sandblaster here? Forgot to check."

"Yeah, it's right there in the corner," his father said and pointed. He had taken a break and sat down to watch them work with a large, flower-patterned cup of herbal tea.

"Oh," Keigo mumbled and went to get it. Chad did the honor of blasting the powdered rust off the van so they could place the necessarily layers of red and white paint and enamel on it, and when the stars were shining, they were done for the night.

"Phew, I'm done for it," James yawned as they walked out of the workshop. "I'm going to bed."

"'Night," they said in unison. Keigo stayed with his father at the workshop, and Minato and Chad walked off in other directions to their own beds.

Minato walked up the path from the road to his house and was greeted by his five year old German shepherd dog. "Hey, Boss," he mumbled and was followed by the large dog as he entered the house.

"I'm home!" he shouted, and immediately cursed at himself for shouting; Matt would of course be asleep by now. But he had no reason to worry; Matt was still up.

"Hey, Minato!" the nine-year-old cheered and jumped at him as to put up a fight.

"Hey, champ," Minato grinned and lifted his kid brother at his shoulder to carry him to the bedroom. "What're you doing still up? I thought you were supposed to be asleep already."

"You're not in bed," Matt pouted. "I couldn't sleep, so Mum showed me how to make cookies!"

"Whoa, cookies?"

"Put me down, I'll show you!"

The kid ran off to the kitchen and came back with a bowl full of soft, warm chocolate chip cookies. They smelled delicious.

"You really made these by yourself? They're great!" Minato said through a mouthful of cookie. "Better than I ever made them."

Matt smiled widely of pride.

"Hey, there, Minato," their Mum said as she entered the living room they were in. "How did it go with the van?"

"Great," Minato said from the couch. "Mr. Kutzusawa is fixing up the engine, so all we gotta do is make it look good."

"I guess you'll be heading off in a few days, then. Don't do anything too rash."

"Don't do anything you wouldn't do?" Minato smiled innocently. He earned himself a pillow to the head.

"Just be careful and have fun," his mother said. "I think it's great that you're doing this." She smiled and ruffled the blonde hair of her oldest son. "Put Matt to bed for me, will you. I'm going to sleep."

"Alright, good night," Minato said.

"I can put myself to bed, thank you very much!" Matt said loudly.

"Of course you can," Minato chuckled. "But I can't have you running around by yourself at night. And when I'm going to bed, so are you." He picked the laughing boy up again and climbed the stairs to their bedroom. He went to brush his teeth, and when he returned, Matt was lying quite quietly in his bed. Minato walked silently over to his own bed, threw off his jeans, socks and singlet and was about to slide underneath the covers when his brother spoke.

"Minato, are you going away?"

Minato turned to look at his brother, who were still lying in bed with his back facing him. He walked over and sat down.

"Yeah, but not for long," he said and looked out of the window to see the clear sky.

"How long?" This time, his brother turned and sat up.

"Dunno," he admitted. "That's sort of part of the fun. You'll do it someday too when you're older, if you want to. But hey," he grinned at his brother, "I'll buy you a present, promise." And with that, the little boy could sleep sweetly.


	2. II: The Clash

**II: The Clash**

Kushina sighed. College was over, and now awaited a long summer with her mother and father at some stuck-up place in a foreign country. If she could only bring Rina, but no, not this time, her mother had told her. The only intelligent human being she was allowed to bring with her, but this time: no. And for what reason?

"Because it is the last summer before you go to university. It's only appropriate to spend some family time with you."

That was what her mother had told her. Bullshit.

"Kushina?"

Someone knocked on the door. This _someone _was her mother.

"Yes, Mum ..." Kushina said with a bored voice. The door to her bedroom was opened.

"Dinner is ready," her mother said. "And please, don't wear that thing, sweety, not when we're having dinner."

"Mum, it's just a hoodie. It's keeping me warm."

"You have plenty of nicer clothes to keep you warm than a ... _hoodie_. Come down when you have changed."

Kushina groaned when the door shut again. How was she supposed to survive the summer? Being told what to do, what to _wear_, was not something she approved of. But did she have any choice? Well, her mother did not let her have any other options, anyway.

She went downstairs to the dining room their maid had cleaned properly for the Saturday evening. Her mother and father were already sitting down at one edge of the long table, waiting for her to come. Kushina quietly sat down and helped herself with some cooked vegetables.

"So the letter will arrive tomorrow," her mother said while she cut the slice of pork she had on her plate. And here we go again: the last couple of weeks' subject during dinner. But Kushina still did not dare look her in the eyes – she was afraid she would reveal herself.

"Yes," she replied simply.

"This will be good," her father joined in. "I am sure that with your grades, you will get in. We will have another well-educated and proper woman in this family."

Kushina could have rolled her eyes if she did not get grounded for a week for it.

"Mary, warm up my bedroom. It's starting to get cold in the evenings," her mother said. The maid obeyed with a _'yes, ma'am' _and walked off.

"Make sure you work hard," her father continued. "It's not an easy subject, though you should do well. But do not make it go to waste."

"Yes, Dad," Kushina replied. "Where are we going this summer anyway?"

"Oh, that's a surprise," her mother smiled. "But it is up north, and it's said to be a very interesting city. And there are a lot of nice restaurants and hotels, we should be able to get the best."

Kushina sighed lowly. 'A surprise' mostly meant yet another big city filled with upper class people, upper class restaurants, upper class service and upper class everything, and you would never have to lift a finger for it. Of course, she had enjoyed the theater, but that was a rare occasion.

"But we have to talk about you heading off to university, Kushina," her mother said seriously.

"Mum, can't we talk about that when we have to?" Kushina complained.

"Do not give me that tone, Kushina. It's only a day until you receive the letter and before you know it, the summer is over and you stand there unprepared, moving out and meeting completely strange people, and not necessarily good people."

"We don't even know if I'll get in! I don't see what all the fuzz is about. What's there to talk about anyway?"

"Listen to your mother, sweetheart," her father said carefully.

"God!" Kushina grumbled. "Can I please go one day without having to talk about this? I'm sick of it!" And with that she got up, left her plate unfinished and stomped up to her room.

"Kushina!" her mother yelled after her, but she did not stop, did not turn back and she did not reply. She did not bother. She slammed the door shut behind her and turned the key. She could probably scream, too, but she kept it inside. Instead, she threw herself on the bed and tried to choke the pillow.

"Kushina, dear?" her father said from the other side of the door.

"Leave me alone," Kushina mumbled barely loud enough for him to hear.

"Kushina, it's important for you to understand that this is something that takes a lot of preparing to get you ready for. It is not easy, we know that, but you will have to cope with it in the meantime. It will be easier when you get there."

"No, it won't," Kushina replied.

"Why not?"

_Because I'm not going_. "I don't wanna think about it right now, Dad. I'm tired."

A few seconds of silence. "Okay, sweetie. Have a good night, then."

Kushina rolled over on her back and faced the roof. She was restless. She had to get some air. But her parents would never allow her to go outside, not this late. But she had decided.

She got dressed, grabbed a pair of shoes from her closet and a leather jacket. The one she had never shown her parents, they would never approve. She shut the lights in her room and grabbebd the key to lock it from the outside. She then sneaked through the hallway and entered her father's office. There was a balcony there with stairs down to the garden; she could get out that way. As quietly as she could she shut the door behind her, unlocked the door to the balcony and stepped out in the fresh, cold air. Man, it felt good. She locked the balcony door with her house key, and softly walked down the stairs. When she came to the windows she ducked. And well down in the garden, she put on her high-heeled boots. She sneaked around the corner of the house and ran.

Fifteen minutes later she arrived at Rina's house. She did not knock; she did not want her best friend's parents to know she was there. Not because she did not like them or because it was _that _late, but because she knew that her own parents would come and ask where she was if they noticed she was gone, and she did not want to involve them in her little escape for the night. Instead, she knocked on her friend's window, and waited for the curtains to slide aside and reveal Rina Ramirez' face. Luckily, they did.

"God, Kushina, what're you doing here? You scared me," Rina said when she had opened the window.

"Shh," Kushina said lowly. "I had to get out. My parents are driving me crazy!" Rina could easily notice the anger in her best friend's face.

"Don't worry, my parents aren't home," she said. "But alright, let's get out of here. Just hold on, I'm gonna get dressed first."

A few minutes later, they were walking down the road towards the city with a beer from mr. Ramirez' storage in their hands.

"They can't go _one day _without mentioning the letter. And they can't go a _single day _without talking about how well I have to do and how I can't possibly disappoint them – they expect me to just go on and do whatever they say I have to do and think that it's the best for me! It's choking me!" Kushina took a violent gulp of beer.

"Have you figured out what to do yet?" Rina asked.

"No, I have no idea," Kushina sighed. "I know that what I did was pretty rash, and my parents are _not _gonna be happy about it. I think they might actually throw me out of the house."

"At least you'll be free."

"Yeah ... I'm not looking forward to see their reaction tomorrow."

"You don't regret it, do you?"

"Not at all. But I could have found an easier way out, don't you think?"

"I can't really think of any, besides dropping out and not telling them until the semester's over. Which will pretty much end up with the same reaction, I guess."

"Yeah ... Hey, let's catch that bus."

The bypassing bus to downtown let them on, and they got off a few minutes later by a small, cozy pub.

"I really wanna get all this university stuff out of my head," Kushina said as they sat down by the bar. "What're you doing this summer?"

"Apparently nothing," Rina answered. "My Dad's got a bit of a loan since he had to repair the garage, that wasn't cheap. But if we can, Mum says we'll take a small vacation at the end of the summer."

"I wish I could stay here with you. I asked Mum where we were going, know what she said? That it's a _surprise_, she said."

"That doesn't sound too good ... Hey, maybe I can catch a bus to wherever you're going and sneak in."

"Please do!" Kushina begged. At that moment they received foaming pints of beer. Kushina took a big gulp and had barely placed the beer back on the table before the door to the pub opened again, and four guys came in with a quite loud entrance.

* * *

_Five hours earlier ..._

"Is it just me, or did that noise not sound very good?" Minato asked his travel companions.

"Just keep going, mate," Chad reassured him lazily and kept relaxing with his feet out of the window. "This thing's old, should be normal."

"As long as we don't -"

A loud sound, and the engine stopped.

"Oh, dear."

"That's just perfect," James said. Minato let the van roll to the side of the road and pulled up the hand brake. Keigo and Chad jumped out to inspect the car.

"I don't really know what to make out of this," Keigo sighed when they looked at the engine. "Honestly, I think we should get a professional to look at it. How far away are we from the closest town?"

James checked the road maps. "The closest is Aretown City, but that's too far from us to push this thing," he said. "And we're apparently in the middle of nowhere."

Everyone looked around them. Nothing. Not even a tree.

"Well ..." Minato said and got out of the driver's seat. "We've been driving for four hours, we could use a break. Let's just wait 'til someone passes by."

"That could be forever," Keigo said. "And what're we supposed to do, anyway?"

"Chill out!" Minato smiled, stepped out on the dry grass by the road, ripped off his shirt and lay down on the ground. He sighed. So did Keigo.

"Guess we've got no choice," he said and got himself a bottle of water.

"I'm borrowing your guitar, Minato," Chad said from the back of the car. They all sat down on the dry grass, Chad randomly playing some tunes and Minato singing lowly along, and waited.

And waited.

Half an hour passed.

"Really," Keigo sighed.

"Yeah," James said with his gaze on the shredded clouds. "This is getting a bit boring."

Chad stopped playing and seemed to be listening at something.

"There's a car coming." He quickly got up and jogged up on the road. He started waving.

"Great!" Keigo cheered and followed his lead.

Fifteen minutes later they were on the road again with their car attached to the bypassing one with a rope. Chad sat by the steering wheel with his foot resting on the brake.

"Lucky he passed by, Aretown City is still an hour away," James said. "We've clearly underestimated the distances in Australia." The next hour passed slowly, before they finally could park their van at a workshop outside the center of the city.

"I'll get this fixed, guys, but I'm afraid you'll have to spend the night here," the man at the workshop told them. The four travel companions made a simple plan: to find some food, find a bar and keep themselves awake for the night. Should not be a problem, they could sleep in the van when they got it back. So they headed off for the city center, bought Chinese food from a stand on the street and happened to walk past a liquor store.

"There's a park over there," Minato said and pointed a little forward. "How 'bout we buy some goon or something and chill there for a while?" The others agreed, and soon, they sat down at the park with pizza, beer and a box of goon.

"Guys," Minato said and raised his bottle. "For The Core."

"The Core!" the other three repeated, and they chugged their first beer down.

It did not take long for that first beer (and the second, and the third for that matter) to control the conversations.

"Hey, guys," Chad grinned. "I have a challenge for y'all."

"Not climbing a roof again, I hope?" James said worriedly. "The roofs here are pretty high up."

"Nah. I say, how 'bout we find a girl for Minato?"

Keigo giggled, while Minato looked sourly at Chad.

"That's a hard one," Keigo said.

Minato lay down on the grass and sighed. "That's 'cause girls are tiresome!"

"Alright then," Chad giggled. "Let's find you a man, then."

Minato threw grass at him.

"You're welcome to try, gentlemen," he said and sat up again. "But you aaaall know very well, it's not gonna happen."

"Oh, come on, Mina," James said and threw the last bottle of beer on the ground. "You've been with girls before. 's not that bad, is it?"

"A lesson for you, James," Minato said and pointed seriously at him. "Girls start with being cute, then they get what they want, and when you're tired of giving they start nagging, and when you get irritated they cheat on you."

"Aw, Mina, that was you being unlucky," James said in what was supposed to be a soothing tone.

"But I'm not the type to sleep around, either," Minato replied and lay down again.

"You have, though," Chad said as he opened the goon.

"Only twice, you idiot," Minato said and tried to kick him in the face, but failed. "How many have you shagged and left?"

"Oh, I know," Keigo said. "He's told me, like, fifteen times."

"Shut your cakehole, Keigo," Chad said. "Okay, so unlike you I _am _the type to sleep around. Nothin' wrong with that, is it?"

James shrugged. "Dunno, I mean, most of them felt pretty bad afterwards. But I don't mind that you walked away from Philipa."

"Yeah, she's a nuisance," Minato giggled. "And you slept with her."

"I was drunk," Chad defended himself.

"Yeah, blame it on that," Keigo said.

One empty box of goon later, they were walking down the street, chatting loudly as they swayed in a messy line towards the bars. A few delays occurred; mostly in the shape of Minato climbing a tree and falling down, earning him several bruises on his arms. But finally, they found a bar and decided to check it out.

The bar was full of people. The bartenders worked in a quick pace to serve drinks, snacks and clean the bar. They went to the counter and ordered four pints of beer while continuing their conversation about James' geeky roommate and his big plans for the future (where James were laughing more than talking).

"But over to a serious matter," James said. "Minato, it would be _awesome _if you let us hook you up with a girl tonight. I mean, we can try to find a nice one -"

He shut up once Minato hit him in the back of his head.

"I said no, already," he said. But when he saw the disappointed faces of his friends, he sighed. "Alright. But -" and he held up a hand when he saw them light up, "_I'm _going to choose one. And then you can say whatever the hell you want to her to help."

"Let's forget the fact that that's going to take forever," Keigo grinned. "Sounds good to me."

The others agreed, and Minato shook his head.

"Idiots ..." he mumbled and payed for their beer. While the others talked about what they could say about Minato to a girl, he looked around the bar for a place to sit. But even though there was an available table where he was looking, his eyes fell on two girls sitting by the counter. They were glancing at them, and he immediately noticed one thing: the eyes of one of them. Big, shiny eyes with a cold brown shade. They were stunning. He caught himself before he had stared too long and turned around again, but the girl could not have missed the fact that he was looking at her for more than five seconds.

She was probably just another girl he would want nothing to do with. But those eyes ...

"Guys, there's a table over there," Minato pointed out to his friends.

"There are tables everywhere, Minato," James said knowingly and received a _'shut up' _in response. They went over to the available table to sit down, and as they passed the girls, Minato could not stop himself.

"Hey," he said to the girls and smiled.

"Hi," they said back. The girl he had looked at blushed a little, but he did not notice; he had instead noticed her bright red hair. The other girl was Latina with long, curly and dark hair. And she had noticed the blushing. So as three of the young men discreetly agreed that Minato had found his girl and the latter man had told them to shut up once again, the girls had a silent discussion about whether or not the red-haired girl had found the blonde man handsome.

After a conversation about how quickly Minato had found _'his job' _pretty quickly, compared to other times, Keigo went to the toilet while James went to the bar to order more beer with aid from Chad. Minato was left alone with his last bit of beer, and by that point the Latina girl had made it clear to her friend that said friend was a wimp who would never dare talk to strange guys, especially not one specific man. So just as Minato had chugged the rest of his beer to start on his upcoming new one, the red-haired girl turned and spoke.

"You guys are not from here, are you?" she asked. Minato was a bit surprised to have a conversation with the girl so soon, but replied as casual as he could.

"No, we're from Southmore," he said.

"Southmore?" the Latina girl said. "Isn't that far away?"

"'Bout a six hour drive," Minato shrugged. "It's a pretty small place."

"Yeah, I've heard," the Latina said.

"What're you doing here, then?" the red-haired girl asked with a small smile; she was pretty amused by the fact that four guys (pretty drunk ones, too) from the countryside had decided to end up in a big, modern city.

"We're heading for The Core, actually," Minato grinned excitedly while he played with the beermat. "But the van we've got is pretty shit, so we had to find a place to fix it, and this was the closest town." James and Chad came back with two beers each and gave one to Minato just when Keigo came back from the toilet.

"So how 'bout you girls?" Minato continued. "I take it you live here."

"Yeah," the red-haired girl said. "And this place is way too big."

"Well, if it had been smaller, you'd been caught," the Latina girl told her friend with a foxy smile. The red-haired girl returned the smile with a bitter look.

Minato just laughed. "Get caught? What, are you running away or something?"

"Oh, she is," the Latina girl smiled. She too had started blushing, but that was more likely from a certain amount of alcohol.

"_Rina_!" the red-haired girl said. "Excuse my friend, she's a bit of a _gossip_."

"What?" the Latina named Rina said with a shrug. "They're not gonna tell on you." She turned to the men. "Are you?"

All four shook their heads.

"See?" Rina smiled.

Kushina sighed. "Well, if you so _desperately_ want them to know everything ..." She drank the rest of her beer and turned to the men. "I ran away from home, just this night, because my parents are the definition of overprotective and controlling. It's so bad that if they find me here, they're gonna kick the whole bar in jail, including me."

Keigo seemed to not understand the joke, and looked frightened. Kushina just scratched her hair and looked as though she thought of herself as a spoilt brat.

But Minato just shrugged, commented that that was understandable and went to the counter. Not long after he came back with a small tray with six shots of Jägermeister.

"Then let's just drink and forget that we we're wanted in jail," Minato said and handed shots to everyone. He reached out his hand, first to the red-haired girl.

"I'm Minato," he smiled.

"Kushina," she smiled back.

Wow. Kushina.

He caught himself before he blurted out with anything unappropriate and shook hands with the Latina girl, Rina, before he sat down and and raised the small glass in his hand.

"Cheers," the men said.

Rina winked at Kushina and poured down her own shot.

And from then on, the night went pretty much according to the alcohol.


	3. III: Another Rash Decision

**III: Another Rash Decision**

Minato slowly opened his eyes. He shut them again at the sharp light and cursed the hammer infiltrating his head. He tried to roll over on his stomach, but just as he moved the first inch, he noticed that someone was resting their head on his belly. He opened his eyes again.

Kushina was lying with one arm and her head on him, facing his legs. She was still in a deep sleep. Next to her again lay Rina on her back.

They were in the van. The three of them lay in the back on the big mattress they had squeezed inside the trunk, and the other three had thrown themselves down on the seats, making sure they used as much space as possible. Minato was pretty sure all their backs would be complaining by the time they were up. And it was deadly warm in the van. If Minato did not get out soon, he would be panicking. So he decided to wake up the girl.

He ruffled her hair. "Mm -" came a sound from her in response.

"Morning," Minato said with a hoarse voice. She shifted a little. It took a while for her to understand what was going on.

"Where are we?" she asked while she slowly sat up and held her head as if it was heavy.

"In the van," Minato said.

"What van?" she asked, but realized. "Oh." She opened up the back door, and the fresh air hit them like a gift from above. Kushina turned to wake up Rina, while Chad had already woken up by the noises and the slight movements in the van.

"Goddamn," he said. "What the hell happened last night?"

"You asking me?" Minato mumbled with his face in the mattress. He had finally rolled over to his stomach and felt sick. Chad opened up the door by his side, and his face fell.

"What the ... uhm, Mina, we're not by the workshop anymore."

"Huh?" Minato said and raised his head. He sat up and looked out. "No, no, no, don't tell me we actually _drove _this thing here."

"We did," Rina said from where she sat with her legs hanging out of the back of the van. Compared to the others, she seemed fine. "I remember."

Minato quietly smacked his head against the wall of the van. Keigo woke up with a start.

"That's not good," Minato said.

"At least everything's fine, and we didn't kill anyone," she replied.

"Eight o'clock ..." Chad said when he checked his watch. "Why the hell did you wake up now?"

"Too warm," Minato mumbled from the wall. He dragged himself out of the van, and he and Chad went to the public toilet in the park; he actually remembered that toilet, he just had not remembered how or why he had ended up there. But that had been pretty much cleared up by Rina.

"Hooooly fff ..." Minato said and had to crouch. Dizziness hit him too sudden.

"Sick, mate?" Chad said.

"No shit," Minato groaned. He got up, stumbled inside the men's room and managed to walk to a urinal.

"Nothing happened between you and Kushina, did it?" Chad asked from his urinal.

"Nope," Minato replied. "You know I'm not the type."

"Yeah, I know."

"But, you know," Minato smiled. "For once, this girl was actually nice. At least from what I remember."

Chad looked at him and grinned slowly.

"You like her, don't you?" he asked.

Minato shrugged. "It's not like I _can _like her, if you catch my drift. I mean, we're leaving today."

"You're right," Chad said and zipped up his jeans. "Well, at least we've proven that you can still like a girl if you want to."

"It's not like I wanted to either."

"You know what I mean."

"Sure. But hey, not a word to the others, they're gonna nag me down like a girl."

"Promise, mate."

When they got back the other guys had stepped out of the van; only Kushina was still inside on the mattress. She had a face that showed the slow shock that came with realizing something.

"What's wrong?" Minato asked.

"Shit," she said and buried her face in her hands. "I'm in big trouble."

She lay down on the mattress and groaned – and then rolled over on her stomach and pulled her hair. "If I don't get back soon my parents are gonna _kill _me. Shit, shit, _shit!_"

"Uh ..." Keigo said discreetly to James. "She did joke about the jail thing, right?"

"I can't be here, I have to get home!"

Minato leaned against the back door, and even though he was unsure if he should talk or not, he said: "We can give you a lift back if you need."

Kushina turned her head and looked at him. With those eyes again. Damn it. She was silent for a while, but then her face changed.

"You know what, fuck it," she said and sat up. "I'm not going back."

Rina grinned. "Told you she'd come around," she said to James and Keigo.

"Where're you gonna go?" Minato asked, and felt his hope rise.

Kushina smiled. "To The Core."

* * *

After a painful breakfast at Subway (the subs were great, but their conditions were not), they were driving out of Aretown City. Rina at the steering wheel since she seemed to have the lowest blood alcohol level, Keigo in the passenger seat, Chad and Minato in the back seat and Kushina and James relaxing in the back.

"You sure about this?" Chad asked the girls as they were driving out on the highway.

"My parents aren't home, so they don't mind," Rina replied while she shifted to fifth gear.

"Alright, then," Chad said. Minato grinned at Kushina. She grinned back, but he noticed that she looked out of the back window at the town as it disappeared with a face that was hard to read.

"Were your parents cool with you going?" Kushina asked.

"Mostly, yeah," Chad replied.

"Dad's a mechanic, so he was just too eager about the van to really care about anything else," Keigo said.

"My Mum's a bit worried," Minato said.

"How come?" Kushina asked.

"Well, let's just say she went to The Core when she was my age, and when she came back she was pregnant with me."

Rina laughed. "I can see where the worry comes from."

"Ah, well, Minato would never get a girl pregnant," Chad said to save Minato's reputation. "There aren't many carefree people in this world he gives less craps than he does, but he's damn careful not to fuck up his life like that." Minato slapped his head out of his way, which lead to a fight violent enough to make James nervous.

"Guys, I would appreciate it if you didn't overturn the van," he said and tossed his chocolate wrapping on them.

"Sorry, James," the two guys apologized.

"Have you met your father?" Kushina asked carefully.

"Never," Minato replied, though more cheerfully than expected. "He's Swedish or something, so after the holidays he went back to Sweden. Mum wrote to him though, told him she was pregnant and kept writing to tell him how everything was going. He seemed interested too, and when I was born he shared his piece of the expenses."

"Honest man," Chad added.

"Seems to be," Minato said. "But I never met him. And when Mum got a job in Southmore she had a rush moving, and with me along, she completely forgot to tell him where we were moving, and lost his address too. So he lost track of us, pretty much."

"And that's the last time you heard from him?" Kushina asked.

"Yeah. Dunno if he's forgotten about it all or what."

"Had he been your stepfather, he probably would," Chad shot in.

"Ah, yeah, well, he was a dick," Keigo said from the front seat.

"My stepfather left us just a year after my little brother was born," Minato explained.

"Oh," Rina said and turned to Keigo. "What about your parents?"

"Dad works at the local workshop," he replied. "Mum's at home with my twin sisters. It's all good."

"We all have pretty good relationships with our families," James said. "Not including the fatherly attempt of Mina's stepfather."

"We heard a bit about your family yesterday, though," Chad said and turned to Kushina.

Kushina sighed. "Yeah, where do I begin ... No, I don't know. It's just that my whole life, they've been controlling everything. What I'm doing, what I'm wearing, who my friends are ... I didn't always listen to them, but they've been doing this since I was born, so it's become a ... I dunno, lifestyle or something."

"So now you're pretty much running away," Keigo said.

"Yeah," Kushina said and sounded like she just realized, but grinned. "I really feel like pissing them off for once. Seriously, they even started to plan my wedding."

"Whoa," Minato said and tried to make the sudden outburst sound casual. "With a guy ready and everything?"

"Actually, yeah," Kushina said. "He's from a pretty wealthy family. They have good influence in town, you see. So Mum though he'd suit me well, or suit _them _at least. He showed up with flowers once, but I barely spoke two words with the guy."

Kushina lifted her head and found Minato looking like he struggled to look normal; truth was, he felt like a balloon with too much air in it.

"Well, I turned him down," she smiled, and Minato felt like all the air finally went out.

"Kushina's too good for him anyway," Rina said and grinned in the mirror at her best friend. She grinned back.

They drove on and continued talking about important things and not so important things, until they arrived in a small coastal town.

"We're in Pools now," James said. "You girls may need some clothes and stuff?"

"Oh, you're right," Kushina said.

"Alright, I'll find somewhere to park ..." Rina found a parking spot near the pier and pulled up the hand brake as soon as she had turned off the engine. The girls got out and headed off to go shopping while the guys tried to clean the van a bit. When they left they had simply pushed their stuff underneath the mattress, which was held up by a wooden plate, and they had to get out the essentials unless they wanted to drag out their bags every time they needed something. As they had not brought a lot of stuff it did not take long, so they lay down on the wooden planks on the pier to catch some sun.

"Holy sh – guys," Keigo suddenly said after a moment. "I just remembered, didn't we take, like, a shitload of photos in Aretown?"

Minato chuckled. "I think we did! How many photos do we have left?"

"I'll check," Chad said and jumped up to get the camera from the van. "Uh ... Three left."

"Let's take three photos and find a photo store," Minato said. "I really feel like seeing those pictures."

And they took three photographs.

Shortly afterwards the girls came back, carrying a bag each stuffed with things.

"Where're the others?" Kushina asked Keigo and Chad, who were lying on the pier.

"They're trying to find somewhere to develop the pictures we took yesterday," Keigo explained dozily. Kushina stared at him.

"There are pictures?" she asked bewildered.

"Oh, yes, many of them," Chad grinned amused. "We had barely taken a single photo with that camera, and when we checked just now we had three left."

About an hour later, Minato and James came back with rather wide grins on their faces.

"You didn't peek on them already, did you?" Keigo asked.

"No, of course not," James answered. "But the guy who developed the photos were pretty amused, so I'm damn curious."

"Come on, let's open it!" Keigo said eagerly. The six of them gathered around James who held the envelope with the photographs. He opened it up and pulled out the bunch. The first ones were not bad: just pictures of four men who had bought their van, who were finally on the road, who were lying on the grass in nowhere with a broken van in the background – and then came the pictures they did not remember.

Which cleared up some things.

The first ones showed them leaving the bar. Fair enough. Then Minato in a tree again, accompanied by Chad.

"That explains _this_," Chad sighed and showed them the rather dark bruises on his right arm.

Then by the van. The workshop had just opened, so they got their van back. Then inside the van. Not by the workshop anymore. Then by the park, running around. Kushina and Minato trying to pull each other down to the ground and making a pretty huge fight of it.

"Oh!" Minato suddenly said. "I remember that."

"I don't," Kushina said, but lifted her right arm up, showing a nice pair of bruises on her, too. "But that explains this."

"Sorry," Minato smiled innocently.

A picture of Minato sitting victoriously on the back of a flat Kushina.

"Damn it," Kushina said.

"That's it," James said when the very first photograph came back on the top of the bunch.

"Alright, let's move on," Keigo said. "I'll drive. You got everything you need?"

"Yeah," Rina replied.

Out on the road again, everyone but Keigo were dozing off. Minato was looking out of the window with a sleepy face from the warmth. He had some kind of funny feeling in his stomach. Something that was triggered every time he looked at Kushina. He did not know why he had reacted so badly when she had told them her parents had set up a fiancee for her, even though he was now sure he liked her. But this feeling, it was a feeling he had only felt a long time ago, about five years ago, when he was seventeen and met his first gilfriend. Which had all become a huge disappointment. He had not been the type to look for possible girlfriends since. Though he had always liked people based on instinct rather than attempt; was that happening again? Well, it was pretty useless anyway, Kushina came from a wealthy family and lived far away in a big city, and had her parent's eagle eyes on her. They would never accept a poor countryside guy like him. But no matter how much he tried to shake off the feeling he held in his somach, it would not go away.

He fell in an uneasy sleep, and dreamed about a tree. He climbed, climbed and climbed, but never got to the top. He felt that it was a hopeless goal, that he would never reach it, but he kept going. He could not help it, he did not know why but he could not stop, he just kept climbing. He saw someonw climbing further up and settling down on a branch. But the leaves were in the way, he could not see who it was, the person laughed -

"Guys, wake up," Keigo said. Minato woke with a start, and the dream was gone as soon as it had come.

"What's up?" Chad said and lifted himself up on the seat he had slid down from.

"We're here," he replied.

Everyone looked out. A sunbathed town lay ahead of them. Large skyscrapers shone in the sun, and the breeze pushed the white waves up on the beach. Around it was just the clear blue sky; the distant horizon told them that the nearest town was too far away from them to see. It was small, yet large, quiet, yet busy; a modern town full of life in the middle of a deserted landscape.

"This is The Core?" Kushina asked.

Minato was looking out of the window with an expression full of expectations.

"Yep," he grinned. "This is The Core."


	4. IV: Here Comes a Wave, Darling

**IV: Here Comes a Wave, Darling**

"Wow," Kushina said as she looked up at the sky above her.

"Pretty cool, right?" Minato smiled.

The six of them had parked among the other cars and vans by the beach, and blankets and beer had been put out on the sand for star gazing. The sand was cold and blue in the night shades.

"This is pretty normal back home, though," Keigo admitted and took a sip from his bottle.

"We never have anything like this," Kushina said and had not even opened hers. She seemed to be fascinated by the fact that the town had shut off the lights for one hour just for the sake of the stars, and she seemed to be fascinated by the view as well. They too had turned off their torches to make it dark enough to see everything.

"Is it possible to get any food at the moment?" Rina asked when her stomach started rumbling.

"Well, yeah, you can walk the town with a torch light," James said. "And the food stalls only dim their lights this hour."

"We haven't eaten since breakfast," Rina said. "Anyone else as hungry as I am?"

"Let's find some pizza or something," Keigo replied. "They should have lots of stalls around here, or so I've heard."

"I'll stay here," Kushina said with a spaced-out gaze on the sky. She would not miss this for the world. Chad looked at her for a brief second before an idea came up in his head.

"Minato, how 'bout you two stay here and watch the stuff while we grab some food?" he suggested. His plan worked out well, too; the rest got up without complain and they headed off to hunt for pizza.

A silence fell between them, but Minato had no problem starting a conversation again.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" he said, and Kushina nodded in agreement. "My Mum knows a lot about constellations and stuff, she tried to teach me some of it. But I don't remember much."

"Really?" Kushina said. "Show me something."

Minato let his eyes shift between the various stars. "I know that one," he said and pointed out a pretty crooked line of stars. "Aquarius."

"Do you know Cancer?"

"Nope. Why, is that your Zodiac?"

"Yeah."

"Ah. Aquarius is mine," Minato said with a small nod and searched the sky again. "I used to know stuff about Sirius too, which was pretty cool, but I forgot."

"How does your Mum know all about this?" Kushina asked.

Minato frowned a bit. "I think it was my father who taught her. He studied it or something."

They fell silent again. Then -

"Are you curious about him?"

Minato looked at her and smiled. "I've heard I look more like him than anyone else, that I look like a typical Swede or something," he said. "Dunno. Sometimes I wonder. But he's never been there, you know? We've done fine without him, so it's not like I need him. And, well ..." he snorted a bit, "It's not like he _did _anything against us, it's just ... They sort of made an accident, that's all."

Kushina looked at him and realized what he meant. "You," she said.

"Pretty much."

"I'm a bit jealous," Kushina admitted with a sigh and leaned forwards to rest her chin on her knees. "You all seem to have all you need, like you don't have any worries at all."

Minato only laughed.

"What?" Kushina said. "Think I'm a spoilt brat who gets everything I point at but are still not happy because I'm rich?"

"What? No, no!" Minato said quickly and sat up. "I wasn't making fun of you or anything, I just – I didn't mean to -" With the difficulties that came with not knowing what to say, Minato just ended up sighing.

"Sorry. It was inappropriate."

Kushina started laughing and punched him lightly in the shoulder. "Relax, I was joking."

"Damn you," Minato smiled and lay down on the sand again. Kushina's eyes were still glued to the shining stars above them. But Minato's eyes were on her. He gazed at her for a while without her noticing. The longer he stared at her, the faster his heart beat. After about fifteen seconds of silent staring, he felt a sudden urge to hold an arm around her and drag her close to him -

"Hope you like seafood!" Keigo's voice interrupted.

It was as though Minato suddenly woke up. He noticed he was about to sit up with an arm barely stretched out to Kushina, and quickly withdrew it – thank God they had returned, who knew how she would react if he suddenly tried to hug her?

They turned their faces to see the others come back. They did not seem to have noticed anything going on.

"Seafood is good," Kushina smiled and stretched out a hand to receive a slice of seafood pizza.

"Good, 'cause James ate most of the pepperoni ones."

"Thanks," Minato mumbled when Keigo gave him a slice.

"Not a big fan of seafood," James explained with a wink.

The night went on with chattering, drinking games and trying to keep Chad from taking a night bath, and ended with an empty pizza box, empty beer bottles and the whole gang spread out on the sand in their sleep.

* * *

When they woke up early the next morning, it was because of the extreme heat of the morning sun. They had been wrapped in sweaters and blankets during the night, which did not suit well with the glowy red run. People had already started coming to the beach; some walking their dogs, some going for an early surf. At their own spot on the beach, sweaters and blankets were now desperately thrown away on the sand, and a nice, cool morning breeze hit their faces much to their delight.

"I feel like surfing today," Chad said cheerfully as he looked at the pretty good surf. "You in, Minato?"

But when Chad turned to where he remembered Minato had fallen asleep that night and he saw an empty spot, his face fell a little.

"Huh? Where's Minato?" he asked his sleepy friends while he looked around him.

"He's already out there, mate," Keigo replied in a drowsy voice. He was still lying on his back with his eyes closed. The others looked out on the distant sea and searched through the small crowd of surfers and true; his blonde hair was not to be mistaken. He was sitting at his surf board looking for a good wave to catch.

"I didn't know you surfed," Kushina said.

"What did you think the surf boards on the van were for?" Chad grinned.

Kushina turned and found the van in her sight. Tied to the roof along with some fluids, camper chairs and a tent were two surf boards. "Oh," she said. "Which one of you doesn't surf?"

"Me," James said and raised his arm half-heartefly. "Never really got the hang of it."

"I've never surfed in my whole life," Rina said. Kushina looked back at the ocean again. Minato had found a good wave and was surfing with ease. When the wave lost its speed, he turned to get on the other side of it, lay down and paddled further out.

During the next hour, Chad and Keigo joined Minato in surfing while James and the girls went to find some breakfast. When they were back the guys were still busy surfing, so James waved as soon as one of them turned to let them know there was food. They came running, dripping wet and well entertained, pushed their surf boards down in the sand and sat down to grab a sandwich.

"Good surf?"

"Awesome, James," Minato said through a mouthful of shrimp and mayo sandwich. The sea was quite a view; the day was still young, yet the waves were soon full of eager surfers and the sand was covered in lazy, content people. The six beach campers ended up a lot like the latter, occassionally getting up to get something to drink or some snacks. When Minato came to Kushina, James and Keigo relaxing on the sand, he sat down next to Kushina.

"Ever surfed?" he asked.

"No," Kushina replied.

Minato looked out on the waves. "Wanna try?"

"Huh?" Kushina asked and turned towards him.

"Come on."

"What? But -"

But Kushina did not get to finish the sentence before Minato had pulled her up and picked up his surf board, which had with time fallen down on the sand.

"But I don't think I'm very good at it," Kushina said slightly nervously as they walked down towards the sea.

"Don't worry, you'll do fine. Besides, everybody has to start off somewhere."

Kushina was still sceptical to the whole trying-to-surf-idea, but she followed him hesitantly out in the water after he had fastened the surf board to her ancle.

"Alright," Minato said and let the surf board float on the water next to him when he found a good, empty spot a bit away from the others. "Jump on it from the left side. No worries, I'm holding on to it, you won't be dragged along with the waves."

Kushina jumped on it and moved further up with directions from Minato.

"Don't hold on to the board when the wave comes, push yourself up with your hands. Bit further down, keep them tight up to your body right by your ribs. Yeah, like that." He held on to the board when a small wave came up behind Kushina. "It's five steps, alright? The first is to move your hands, second to push your upper body up -" Kushina pushed her upper body up, "As much as you can, your arms are supposed to be a straight line. The third is to move your right knee; depends on if you're right-handed or not, though. So your hands will lift from the board, but don't lose contact with the board, alright? And the fourth is to lean forward and raise up, and keep your feet at the middle of the board, otherwise it'll be unstable. That's a key point, your feet and your head should cross the middle, but stand at the back of the baord. And the fifth and last step is pretty much not to fall."

"Yeah, I guess that's the tricky part."

Minato grinned. "When you stand up, you should keep your knees bent, don't stand straight. The closer you are to the board, the better balance you have and the better chance you've got to stay on the board."

"Can you go go through it all again?"

"Five steps, right? Hands on the board, push yourself up, knee forward but don't lose contact between the hands and the board, stand up, knees bent. And make sure you're standing on the mid-line. Which isn't visible on this board, though. And if you know you're falling, lean backwards. Better not fall on your head."

Kushina tried to save all the information and made a mental note to especially remember the last part for now, and was about to ask if he was sure about this when Minato moved behind her, grabbed the tail of the surf board, said: "Here comes a wave, darling! Go!" and pushed her along with the wave. Kushina was surprised by the sudden move and tried with a slight rush to stand up, and Minato was actually surprised by how well it went, given the circumstances. She managed to make somewhat of a stand on the board for maybe two seconds before she fell, but had still managed to keep on the surf board while raising.

Kushina came back with the surf board floating next to her and a pretty grumpy look on her face.

"That was mean," she said. "Jerk."

"I thought you did well," Minato grinned.

"Don't laugh!"

"I'm not! I'm serious, barely anyone manages to get to the fifth step on their first go. You've got good balance, right?"

These news seemed to cheer her up, given the blush and the little smile.

"Really?" she asked with sort of a pride in her voice.

"Yeah, really. You should've seen me."

Kushina giggled and got new hope for the surfing. With a whole new determination she kept trying for the next hour until they left the water, the red-haired girl exhausted, smiling and with a good minute or two as a high schore. They chatted and laughed until they reached their home on the beach where the others had been sitting and watching the small lesson.

"You did well, mate," Keigo said. "And you haven't surfed before?"

"Not until now," Kushina replied. They kept chattering about the subject, Kushina a bit overwhelmed by the good critiques. But none of them mentioned one thing they had all finally noticed happening in the water: Minato's flirting moves and the closeness that had been increasing during that hour.

But neither of them seemed to care that they had been watched. Minato did not know what it was from Kushina's side, but he knew from his own that he was happy they had met the girls and they had tagged along. Yeah, very happy.


	5. V: Cancer

**V: Cancer**

The six companions had been in The Core for nearly a week now. Camping on the beach proved to be not very comfortable, given their sore backs and the fact that it was not very practical with the heat that came early in the morning and all the people who would be waking them up. So they had moved their van to the largest park, which was close enough to the beach and its facilities, and put up a tent nearby. The girls got the van while the boys slept in the tent.

During these days Kushina had become quite good at surfing, and even though she felt ready for bigger waves, Minato knew how big the difference was between the waves close to the beach and the ones further out. Kushina became quite grumpy for not being allowed further out, but Minato just laughed it away, ruffled her hair and said she would come there. Even though the girl was not very patient and hated to be told what to do, she would always smile when he did that; back home, the reaction was _always _a summary of why she could not do it and a lecture on what she needed to do. And that was first and foremost what she was sick of.

They had also found their regular bar a bit further away from the beach. The bar owner was a nice old man with a grey beard, and he looked like he had tasted a lot of beer during his fifty years on Earth. He had noticed them dropping by two nights at a row but had not seen them before, so he was interested in where they came from and started chatting with them. They soon got along, much to their benefit, because that only meant free shots every night.

The morning on the sixth day in The Core, Chad and Minato had decided to go for a run so their exercise that year would not all be in vain from all the beer and cheap food (and to get an excuse to get an update on Minato's developing feelings for Kushina in private). Kushina and Rina sat in the back of the van with the back door open talking and laughing like most girls do, and Rina was happy for her friend; she was in a much better mood and became more and more like herself. She was happy they could talk about random stuff instead of her having to comfort Kushina. They did not talk about her parents at all, even though they would have noticed by now what Kushina had done a long time ago, and they would not be particularly happy about it ... But it was for the best to leave them out of Kushina's head for a while.

Though there was one thing Rina could not help but being insanely curious about.

She leaned forward towards Kushina to talk lower.

"Kushina, I've noticed something ..." she said with a foxy smile. "You seem to have made good friends with Minato."

Kushina instantly blushed. "Well, I ..." she said, unsure how she could talk about this uncertain subject.

"You like him, don't you?"

Kushina looked at her. Rina's eyes were staring intensely but knowingly; she was just waiting for an answer she knew would either be what she had already figured out, or a lie.

Kushina sighed. "I think I do," she answered. "I ... don't really know what I'm supposed to do with it, though."

"Not much to do, is there?" Rina smiled. "You like him, that's just how it is. You can't really help it, can you?"

Kushina shook her head and looked down at her feet.

"Hey," Rina said and grinned. "I think you'd be cute together."

"You think so?" Kushina smiled and looked up. Then she looked pensive again. "It probably won't happen, though. I mean, we live far away from each other, and there's no way my parents are gonna like him. And besides, they're gonna kill me."

Rina sighed. "Don't worry about them for now. You finally have some time away from them, and I've noticed you've become a lot more happier, and I'm so happy for you." She smiled.

"Yeah, maybe ..." Kushina smiled back. "Then what should I do about it?"

Rina winked. "Let it happen."

Kushina looked at her for a moment. She knew what her best friend said was good advice and she was grateful for her being her advisor for most of her problems, but she was afraid for what would happen when she went back. Maybe she could just escape forever ...

At that moment, Chad and Minato came back, dripping wet from head to toe.

"Wow, you're sweaty," Keigo commented.

"Jumped in the ocean, you git," Chad said indignantly. "It was too warm."

"Hey, girls, let's get something to eat," Minato said as he ripped off his singlet and went inside the tent to get changed.

"Sure," the girls said. Rina winked at Kushina, who had one thing in mind: she could definitely let it happen.

* * *

That evening they were sitting by the bar counter chatting with the owner as usual. They had ice cold beer in front of them and a great mood dominated. Minato had to be careful not to end up in his own thoughts, though; he had just a moment ago received a long gaze from Kushina, along with a discreet, warm smile. And he could not help but go through it over and over again in his head and wonder what the hell it was all about. Was it just friendly, or was it more than that? He should probably just wait and see. Right now they were having a good time.

But said good time saw its end too soon.

Behind the counter was a small television currently showing the news, which none of them really cared about. But one quick glance on it from Kushina was enough to make her face freeze in horror. She lowered her glass slowly and said: "Jack, turn up the TV a little, will you?"

The owner pushed a button on the television a few times, and the sound was soon loud enough for them to hear properly. And they all soon understood Kushina's reaction.

On the screen was a facial composite of none other than herself.

_"Saturday evening, Kushina Uzumaki disappeared from her house in Aretown City," _the news reporter announced. _"Witnesses can tell us she was seen in Aretown City that night with a girl her parents have proved to be her friend and four men none of them could identify. Her parents reported her missing Sunday morning and the police have done thorough searches in Aretown City and nearby areas, but without results. The police suspects the girl ran away from home with her friend and the four men without telling anyone, and she is now being sought throughout the country. We ask anyone who sees her or believe they have seen her or her companions to report it immediately to the police. She is nineteen years old, has dark red hair ..." _The news reporter continued a detailed description of Kushina, followed by a description of Rina and some details they were uncertain about of the men.

They were silent for a while. Kushina's face was still horrified and she barely breathed.

"Don't worry about it, Kushina," Jack said and looked reassuringly at her. "Even if they're searching for you, you're probably not the only girl with red hair in the country. Besides, this is far away from Aretown. And if you need anywhere to hide, you know you'll be safe here."

Rina smiled gratefully to the bar owner, but Kushina still looked scared and seemed to realize that she had done something incredibly stupid.

"They didn't describe us very well," James tried. "I think you can relax for a while."

Kushina nodded slowly, but the time to relax was short. Jack looked out of the window of his bar and his face became worried.

"Uh-oh ... There's the police."

They turned around quickly, and true; a police car was parking right outside, and it could only be to search the bar.

"Go out through the back door," Jack said quickly and put their glasses down behind the counter. "Split up, it's best if they don't see you all together so they won't make a connection between you."

The six hurried through a door that led to the owner's office, and sneaked out through the back door. They were lucky the bar was so small and had such a bad location; there were few customers, and they agreed to pretend they had not seen anyone. A bartender followed them out to lock the door behind them when he heard voices, and he stopped to listen.

"The police wants to check all the rooms," he summarized in a whisper. "Go!"

They hurried discreetly out of the small and dark alley and found their way to a main street they had not seen before. They only thing that was said was _'meet up by the tent later' _before they split up in three groups without planning; they simply ran off with the one who was closest. James and Rina ran to the left, Keigo and Chad to the right while Minato grabbed Kushina's arm and dragged her down some stairs. At the end was a river and a pathway beside it.

They decided to run to the right. They kept as close to the rock side as possible to avoid the street lights, but came to a sudden halt when they saw a police car parking at the road a few hundred meters away. Three policemen got out of the car and turned on their torches.

"Come on," Minato whispered, grabbed Kushina's arm again and started walking quickly the other way. They stopped when they came to a small bridge. The policemen were still walking behind them, and they could not risk crossing the bridge; the lights would reveal them immediately.

"Down there," Kushina whispered and pointed towards the river. They carefully walked down the small, slippery hill by the river and on to the stony river bank. They searched in desperation for a good place to hide and found it: a small sort of cave made by large boulders and rocks underneath the bridge. They got there just in time and sat down as far underneath the stones as they could, and made themselves small. They waited. They breathed soundlessly, their hearts hammered against their ribs and steams of smoke blew out of their mouths in the cool air by the river.

They waited.

They could hear the police talk. "Doesn't look like she's here." "According to unit five, no witnesses have seen her." "This is a waste of time."

The voices disappeared as the policemen turned and walked back to the police car, got in and drove away. Kushina let out a relieved sigh.

"That was close," Minato said lowly. "Let's stay here a bit longer, in case they come back."

Kushina nodded. She let out another sigh, and suddenly started laughing.

"This is just so ... _stupid_," she said.

Minato grinned. He stretched his legs out and leaned his head back on the rocks.

"So," he said, looked down at Kushina and smiled widely. "Nineteen, huh?"

She looked up at him and snorted. "Like you're much older."

"What if I am?"

"Are you?"

Minato shrugged.

"You're probably, like, sixteen or something, you just don't dare to admit it," Kushina said and stretched out as well, a lot more relaxed than before.

"Sixteen?" Minato said loudly. "I hope you're not trying to insult me or anything?"

Kushinia looked at him again with a sly smile. "What if I am?"

She grinned victoriously when Minato did not find anything to say back and just hit the back of his head against the rocks as a punishment for losing.

"I am older than you, though," he finally said. "I'm twentytwo."

"Really?" Kushina said in surprise. "I thought you were twenty or something."

Minato slowly grinned again. "So according to you I _am _much older than you."

"What? No!" she responded hastily to not lose their little discussion. "Not really."

Their voices had reached a high volume by now, so Kushina looked around them to see if they were still alone. But the police or anyone else were far out of sight.

"So twentytwo's alright?" Minato asked. Kushina turned to look at him, and her face showed that she was not really sure what that was supposed to mean. Neither was she sure if his face was supposed to show a sort of fake innocence.

She had decided to answer carefully, so Minato would have something to think about too. "Maybe."

"'Maybe', huh?"

A moment of silence. Then -

"I think we should stay a bit longer, they still might be searching," Kushina said. Minato agreed. He was silently debating with himself whether or not Kushina had realized his attempt to find out if she could be interested or not.

"Are all of you twentytwo?" Kushina asked.

"Yep. Or, Keigo and James turn twentytwo later this year."

"Wait," Kushina suddenly said. "Which date is it today?"

Minato had to count. They had not really kept track of the days lately, but they had left on the fifth, so today would be ...

"The twelfth," he finally answered.

Kushina snorted. "And my parents forgot my birthday."

"What?"

"Well, so did I, though," she smiled.

"What do you mean?"

"I turned twenty two days ago."

Minato laughed. "Looks like we've been too busy not caring about anything lately. But hey, happy delayed birthday, then."

He stretched his arms out, and Kushina accepted the hug. The fact that the hug was meant as a birthday hug and nothing else seemed to disappear from Minato's mind. He felt warm embracing her, and it was completely new to him how soft she was; but even though she let go, and even though he had not counted seconds, he noticed that it was a bit too long for an innocent birthday hug. And even though they were not in an embrace anymore and Kushina was leaning her head on her knees, she did not break eye contact. Neither did he.

He noticed she was shivering a little. Which he did not necessarily see as Kushina being cold, but as a new opportunity to show the good side of him.

"Are you cold?" he said, still keeping his gaze at her. What he did not know was that she had been completely hypnotized by his eyes and that she had not even noticed that she was cold, but she nodded.

"Come here," Minato said and moved his arm to offer her some warming body heat. She placed herself next to him and curled up beside him while he held his around around her shoulder and used the ther to stroke her warmer. He was surprised when she eventually rested her head on his shoulder.

He looked up at the night sky. The city was again pitch black. The stars revealed themselves in the dark, making a beautiful cover above them, looking down at them, as to keep them safe.

Minato stretched out an arm and pointed to the sky.

"Cancer," he said. Kushina looked up at where he pointed. "Those three stars in one line, and two more, making sort of a Y that fell over."

"I thought you didn't know it?" Kushina asked.

"I learned it."

She looked him in the eyes again, and he smiled at her. A warm smile. The one she had come to be attracted by, the one that made her feel like she suddenly lost contact with the ground and could fall over any time.

"We should get back," Minato said. He slowly got up and offered her his hand. They walked up to the dark pathway again. It was too soon, he was not sure what Kushina's feelings were yet, and he definitely did not want to make a bad move.

"Wait," Kushina suddenly said behind him. He stopped and turned around. She walked up to him. Stretched.

Kissed him.

It was as surprising as it was longed for. She did not break it; she grabbed his t-shirt to not fall over, and he sneaked his arms around her back to support her. And responded to the kiss.

After a moment of slow, silent kissing, they broke it.

"I was that obvious, huh?" Minato said. Kushina giggled.

"A bit."

Minato smiled down at her. Gave her a kiss on her bangs, nodded in the pathway's direction and said: "Let's go."

And they walked back.


	6. VI: Scary Old Ladies

**VI: Scary Old Ladies**

"There you are, thank God!" Rina exclaimed when Minato and Kushina came walking towards the tent where the others were sitting outside.

"Everything alright?" Keigo asked.

"Yeah, we're fine," Minato said. "Bumped into the police but managed to hide before they saw us."

"Good. Chad and I bumped into them as well, they were asking a shitload of questions. I think they recognized us from the descriptions."

"Did they figure you out?" Kushina asked worriedly.

"I don't think so," Keigo replied. "We didn't really say much, we said we were just here for the surfing."

"And that we had heard about you but hadn't seen you," Chad shot in.

"Pizza?" James said and held out a pizza box. Minato suddenly realized he was starving and grabbed a slice.

"We're gonna get fat," Minato pronounced through a mouthful of ham and mushroom pizza. "How did you come up with buying food now, by the way?"

"James and I saw the police and tried to act normal," Rina said. "We were right next to a pizza stand, and we thought that buying pizza looked normal enough."

She got up and stretched.

"Kushina, I'm going to bed. You coming?"

"Yeah," Kushina said and followed her friend. She sent Minato a discreet wink before they went to the van, jumped in and closed the back door.

"What a night," Keigo said and grabbed a bottle of water. "Didn't think so much would happen on this trip."

"Yeah, speaking of which," Minato began. "I might need your advice on something."

"With what?" Keigo asked and drank from the bottle.

"Kushina kissed me."

The water that was previously in Keigo's mouth was now watering the grass.

"She _what_?" James said.

"Finally!" Chad said.

James and Keigo looked at him.

"I like her," Minato said. "Chad knew."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Keigo pouted.

"Well, first of all, Keigo," Minato said and placed his pizza slice on the box. "You blurt out with stuff. Like you don't mean to do it, you just say everything on your mind. You're crap at keeping secrets."

"That's true," Keigo admitted.

"And second of all," Minato continued. "I know you'd nag the crap out of me."

"Oh, we will," James smiled. "I'm gonna demand nightly reports on this."

Minato sighed. This was going to be a long vacation.

* * *

When the men woke up the next morning, the van was empty. The girls had left a note saying they would be right back, so they just relaxed outside the tent and waited for their return.

"They better come back soon, I feel like going for a swim," James said from where he lay thrown all over a camping chair. "It's hot."

"And they better not get caught," Keigo added.

"That too."

"So, Minato," Chad said. "Yesterday, was that just an impulse, or is something actually happening between you and Kushina now?"

"Dunno," Minato said. "It was Kushina's move and I gotta admit, I don't know her well enough to know what her intentions could be."

"You must've given her a reason to kiss you, though," Keigo said wisely.

"Yeah, well ..." Minato snorted. "I was kinda flirty last night, coulda been a sort of 'thank you' or so." Minato shook his head of his own cliché behaviour the night before.

"Really," Chad grinned slyly. Minato threw grass at him.

"Shut your cakehole, Chad, nothing else happened."

"I know, I know."

"Hey, there they are," Keigo said. "What -"

They turned to look at the girls approaching them. Something had definitely changed.

"Good thinking," James smiled.

"Thought it was a good idea," Kushina said and played with her hair. Which had now turned from dark red to dark brown.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to it," Rina said and sat down at an available camping chair.

"Looks good," Minato said and winked to Kushina. She smiled, blushed and sat down on the grass next to him.

"I gotta lay low, though," she continued as she opened a bottle of water. "We tried to be discreet, and I pretty much hid all the time but there was this one old lady who was staring me down outside the supermarket."

"Let's hope she didn't recognize you," Keigo said worriedly, but pointed out: "At least it'll be harder to recognize you now."

"Yeah," James said impatiently. "Can we go for a swim now? I might be dying."

* * *

Two days later, they walked down to the beach early in the morning with towels and surf boards, and Minato had a hard time not noticing how nice Kushina looked from behind as she was walking in front of them with Rina. They had had their romance the past days, and the response to James' nightly reports was that it was definitely not just an impulse. They had during those days taken a walk on the beach (which ended up in a water fight before they decided to go back when they were almost dragged along by the rip) and a bit of kissing (or making out, was probably the more fitting words). They spent a lot of the time when they were alone talking, and it did not take long for Minato to understand that Kushina was nothing like the other girls he had been with. She was, unlike the other girls, amazing.

As soon as they reached the water they jumped in, and three of them paddled out on their surf boards towards the quite large waves that had appeared.

"Surf's pretty wild today," James said when he and the girls were lying on the beach after a refreshing swim, looked at the others and saw Minato get dragged under a large, white wave. He popped up on the surface shortly after.

Kushina glanced around the beach while she grabbed a bottle of water and drank. And sent all the water down to the trachea and coughed wildly.

"Kushina, are you alright?" Rina asked when Kushina kept her watery eyes in that horrified expression again.

"That old lady," she whispered hoarsely. "Don't look! It's the same old lady who was staring me down earlier, and now she's doing the same."

Rina tried to shift her gaze in an unobvious manner. "I don't like her. She gives me the creeps."

At that point, a newspaper came flying with the wind towards them. James grabbed it and looked at it.

"Kushina, you're on the front page."

"What?" Kushina exclaimed and snapped the newspaper from James. Taking up almost the whole front page was a close-up picture of her face. She recognized it from the family photograph in the living room, the one on top of the fireplace, because of her not too genuinely smiling face. She quickly ripped open page four, where an extended version of the news reporter's description and story about her on the television was printed. The three of them gathered to read the article, when the other three came up from the water.

"That was insane," Chad grinned and pushed his surf board down in the sand. When no one looked up, he said: "What's the matter?"

Kushina lifter the paper to show him the front page.

"Oh. Shit."

"What does it say?" Keigo asked.

"Same as the news reporter on TV said," James explained. "Along with a few more details about us; apparently someone think they've seen us, but they're not mentioning where. They say they've searched The Core, though, it's on the list of places they've searched without results."

"Let's hope it stays that way," Chad said. Kushina closed the newspaper, lay down on the beach with a groan and buried her face with the front page.

"I feel like a villain," Kushina mumbled.

"We made a song about that," Keigo said. Everybody halted in their moves and looked at him. Even Kushina showed up from beneath the newspaper with a frown.

"What? You know, the song about villains?"

"Yes, we know the song about villains, Keigo," Minato replied. "But that seriously came out of nowhere."

Keigo shrugged. "Just sayin'."

"Put aside that Keigo is totally blurting out with random shit," Chad said and sat down. "It is a good song."

"You make songs?" Kushina asked.

"We've made quite a few," Minato said, lifted her shoulders up and sat down behind her so she could lean on him. "We made a band some many years ago, didn't we mention that?"

Rina shook her head. "So, are you popular?"

Chad laughed. "Back home, yeah. But we're so local we don't even have a name."

"We've only performed in Southmore, but people like us there," Keigo said. "But we're not aiming for bigger things with the music, we just do it because we enjoy it."

"What do you play?" Rina asked curiously.

"Rock," Keigo answered. "Minato does the vocals and the guitar, I'm the bassist and Chad's the drummer."

"What about you?" Kushina asked James.

"I never played," he said. "But I put them up for their first concert about five years ago or so, and after that I got a role as manager."

"Can we hear something?" Kushina said with a wide smile.

"Well, we don't have anything else than an acoustic guitar and Minato's voice, but maybe," Chad winked.

"Oh, come on!" Rina insisted.

"Maaaybe," Chad repeated. Rina pouted.

"Hey, you're bleeding," Kushina said when she saw Minato's arm. A drop of blood was running down towards his leg.

"Oh, it's nothing," Minato said and wiped it away. "Just the rocks."

"Isn't that a bit dangerous?" Rina asked.

"Could be."

"Hey, let's go get some food, I'm starving," Keigo interrupted.

* * *

That evening, they went back to the bar to visit Jack. He was so relieved to see them he filled large, foaming pints of beer for all of them, free of charge.

"I was wondering if something had happened," Jack said when he handed out the last beer to Kushina. "I saw you in the newspaper this morning, so I figured they hadn't seen you."

"It was close, but I don't think they're expecting me to be here," Kushina said and took a large sip of beer. "I've been keeping myself away from the public lately, but we figured it was safe to come here."

"Wise choise. The police came back last night for a final inspection, searched the whole place. Made a hell of a mess in here, the bar was full. But they left and said it was the last time they showed up here."

"Sorry I've caused so much trouble," Kushina apologized.

"Nothing to worry about, dear," Jack smiled warmly. "I gotta say, if I didn't get the privilege of choosing my own life, I'd run away, too."

The door to Jack's office opened, and the bartender from last time showed up.

"Oh! It's you guys," he smiled. "Glad to see you're still here."

"Thanks for helping us out on Saturday," Kushina smiled back.

"No problem. Hey, there's this festival going on next week, you still around then?"

"I guess," Chad said.

"Why don't you tag along? I'm going with some friends, and I know people who work there, I can get you in."

They agreed that it was safe to go with him to the festival, and Minato and Chad headed out to smoke. Kushina joined them, without smoking.

"That old lady showed up again today," Kushina said as she placed herself on a wide window sill.

"Who?"

Kushina reminded them of the old lady outside the supermarket, and told them she had been on the beach, staring as suspiciously as she could.

"We're not gonna let some old lady scare us away," Chad said an puffed on his cigarette. "She's probably just one of those old people who think today's young people are shameless, spoilt trash."

"And she's absolutely right," Minato added when he lit his own cigarette. Kushina giggled. Minato liked her laugh. It was not too girlish, but warm, genuine, and it was hers. It suited her well.

"Don't worry about her," he said. "I'm not planning on kicking some old lady's ass, but if she bothers you again, I'll go talk to her."

After making sure that she did not need help with an old lady staring at her, they kept chatting until Chad threw away his cigarette to go to the toilet. Minato turned towards Kushina, leaned his arms on her resting legs and smiled at her.

"Scared of old women, are we?" he teased. Kushina pouted at him.

"I'm not scared of her," she replied. "I'm just scared she'll reveal us."

"Not gonna happen. We've managed to escape once, they won't be searching this place again for a while. Who knows, maybe you'll be back home before they find you."

Kushina silently shifted her gaze to the sky. She sighed. Home.

"Calling it home feels ... wrong."

Minato just looked at her while smoke slowly escaped his mouth.

"If I go back there, I'm seriously gonna die. I'll either rot away in my room when I get grounded for a lifetime, or get strangled by my parents once I show up."

"Well, they're your parents," Minato said, and when Kushina opened her mouth to say something on it, he quickly added: "I know what they're like, but won't they just be glad you're back home and safe?"

Kushina suddenly grinned and shook her head. "I've done worse things than running away to piss them off."

"Like what?"

"My parents always wanted me to study law. Ever since it gained higher status in our town they felt like it was the best I could possibly go study. I'd be _so _influential, earn so much money and I'd have my whole life secured. But I never wanted to study law, it never interested me."

"So what happened?"

"They made me write a letter to apply for the school. I wrote it, but ... I never sent it."

"And they don't know?"

Kushina grimaced. "They do now. The letter's still in my room, and I don't think they've found it, but I haven't gotten a reply. They've been thinking I'd receive a letter by now, but since I haven't, they're probably realizing what I did."

Minato puffed on the cigarette again and turned his head to avoid the smoke to blow in Kushina's face.

"You'll figure something out," he said. When Kushina did not seem convinced, he added: "You don't have to go back."

She looked at him with a questioned face, and he shrugged.

"You could come with us, if you want."

Kushina blinked a little, and seemed to think about her options.

"I could ..." she said slowly. "I don't think I could leave Rina, though."

Minato grinned. "Your parents are gonna throw you to the old ladies."

Kushina giggled and tried to tickle him, but ended up getting dragged down from the window sill. Minato wrapped his arms around her from behind and swirled her around in the air, but the alcohol made him unsteady; he stumbled into the wall, and they stood there laughing until Kushina turned around and wrapped her arms around his neck to kiss him.

Mm, the kisses. They were not half bad. It was obvious that Kushina had kissed before, but that did not bother Minato. He just enjoyed them. He sneaked his arms around her back and pulled her closer, delighted by the moment of close contact. They had been doing this (quite a lot) ever since the night underneath the bridge, but Minato felt like making it a bit more ... _exciting_.

He grabbed her waist and pushed her carefully up against the wall, pressed his tongue against her lips, inviting her to play. She was surprised by the weight of him keeping her close up to the wall, but responded by opening her mouth. Pleased by the successful move, he sneaked his arms around her again, just a little further down than usual. The edge of her top underneath her leather jacket tickled his fingers, and in the back of his pretty much empty brain, he considered what was safe to do. He did not know how far she had gone before; taking things a step further could scare her off if she was not ready for it, so it was probably safe to keep his hands on the outside of her clothes. He could try, though, to make small hint, see how she would react, see if she resisted ...

But before he could come to some sort of conclusion with his at the moment slow-working brain, Kushina surprised him. She had all the time kept her hands firmly around his neck, but was now leading them down to his torso, stroking his abs and sneaking them around his back. She stopped when she had hooked her two thumbs on the edge of his jeans.

Oh, Kushina. As unpredictable as always. What was this supposed to mean? Minato knew better than to see it as an opportunity to rip her clothes off, but it did show that she dared to take it further herself. He did not know how slow she wanted to take it, but that was only part of the game, part of the excitement.

He felt chills down his spine when she led one hand further up and sneaked it underneath his singlet. Out of enjoyment of the kissing she did not stroke his back softly, but tensed her fingers, scratching him lightly as she went further up. It completely blew his mind off, and without thinking, he grabbed her waist again and led her around the corner to the back of the building for more privacy. The kissing increased in speed, became more intense, and it did not take long for Kushina to grab his singlet and drag it further up, tense her thumb and nag at his jeans.

It was probably the alcohol, Minato concluded. The alcohol made her dare, but he was sure that he did not need alcohol to get the feeling of desire he had now. All the more reason to control himself. Or what if she did this just to piss her parents off even more? No, she would not do that. Or would she? Minato cursed at himself for letting his past experiences with girls interrupt the wonderful time he had with Kushina.

The girl suddenly broke the kiss and giggled a little. She was blushing, but did not look ashamed when she looked him in the eyes and gave him gentler strokes on his back.

"Sorry," she whispered. "Got a little carried away."

Minato grinned, kissed her gently. All his earlier thoughts and worries were thrown out of his head. He was pretty sure he had nothing to worry about.

And until Chad found them, Minato with a lightly ripped singlet and Kushina playing with it, they sat on the ground, talking and laughing. And in the end, they were all just sitting there. Talking and laughing.


	7. VII: The Note

**VII: The Note**

"This place is _huuuge_!" Rina exclaimed when they entered the festival area. A large spot of green grass stretched out in front of a pretty elaborate stage, and around it were stands with drinks, food and other things. And a _lot _of people. According to the bartender, Yuri, the festival only kept one stage and was pretty local, but they did well and was going on for three days. The only problem this time was one group of stubborn band members who could not agree with each other and had not showed up yet, and rumours about the band not performing after all spread quickly, much to the staff's disappointment.

Yuri had easily fixed free entrance for them with some help from a few friends, even mentioning that a couple of them were a popular Southmore band for extra credit. And now they were walking towards a good spot on the grass with beer in their hands and sun in their face.

"The first band makes a good start," Yuri said. "They're quite new, but they've done really well with their first album. They haven't performed much, though, so I wonder if they're any good live."

It took another hour until the stage was prepared for the first concert, but they did not mind. They sat on the grass talking, taking turns to go buy more drinks, and Yuri proved to be a very kind and interesting man.

"One thing that's good about this place," Rina said clearly. "No scary old ladies."

Kushina giggled in her beer cup. "If she shows up at a place like this I think I'm the one who's going to stare."

"You'd be surprised to see who shows up at these festivals," Yuri said after he had chugged the rest of his beer. "Mostly young people, yeah, but there are a few old people, too. You know, the type who never really grew up."

"That doesn't count our scary old lady," Rina said. "She's definitely not mentally young." As the second round was on her, she got up and headed for the closest bar stand.

"You know, if we'd been from a bigger city and advertised ourselves a bit more, we could be at a stage like that right now," Chad pointed out and nodded towards the huge, black layout in front of them.

"And we'd be world wide famous," Minato grinned. "And live in large houses in L.A., and have four dogs each. And we'd all be neighbours, of course."

"Of course," Chad repeated. "And a better car than the van we've got. I'm not really sure we'll make it all the way home with that thing."

"Now that you're mentioning it, when are you planning on leaving?" Yuri asked.

Keigo shrugged. "Whenever we feel like, or when we run out of money." Or get caught, but no one said that out loud. "Do you always fiddle with stuff?"

Kushina looked up at Keigo. She had been pulling grass up from the earth without really thinking much about it. She chuckled.

"It's a bad habit."

"This festival's gonna last for quite a few hours, there won't be any grass left when it's over," Minato teased and a received a hand pushing his face away from her sight. Rina interrupted by coming back with more beer.

The first band showed up on the stage, followed by several more bands they enjoyed. After the second band Yuri's friends and boyfriend arrived, and they sat there until the sun disappeared behind a burger stand and a shadow that was slowly, so slow they did not notice, growing darker. At that point a man came over, who Yuri greeted as another friend.

"Did I hear something about you being the Southmore band?" the man asked.

"Uh, yeah," Chad replied.

"I recognize you now," the man smiled. "I was in Southmore myself last year, and I saw you perform at the bar."

"Really?" Keigo said bewildered. "I mean, you actually remember us?"

"Well, yeah! I thought you did well, and you were good at performing. You see, we have a problem. The band that was supposed to come on stage in thirty minutes never showed up, and we just got a message that they're calling it off. We have some gear backstage, so I wondered ... Would you be up for taking their place on the schedule?"

It took a while for the man to get any answer. They all sat there on the ground looking at him, blinking, going through the conversation again in their heads to make sure they had not misheard anything.

"You – You want us to – What?" Keigo stammered.

"Only if you want to," the man reassured them quickly, but he could not hide the hope in his voice. "It would help us out a lot, otherwise it'll be two more hours until the last band gets on stage. We're afraid people might leave if they -"

"Are you serious?" Minato grinned widely. "That. Is. _Awesome_!"

"You – You'll do it?" the man asked with a hopeful face.

"Come on, guys," Minato grinned and looked at Chad and Keigo, but they were already getting up.

"Not gonna let a chance like this go to waste," Chad said and pulled the blonde up from the ground. They headed off, Minato so excited he almost ran, after the man who had now looked like he just got his Christmas presents early.

"Come on, let's go get closer to the stage," Rina suggested, and the three remaining friends ran off to the fence while Yuri and his friends decided to stay behind. The instruments were being tested and adjusted by stage workers. The crowd was getting thicker; the last band was the headline for today, and since they came up after Minato, Chad and Keigo, people were trying to secure themselves a good spot. When twenty minutes had passed and it was getting ridiculously hot from all the people, Kushina turned and tried to see how big the audience was. But she could not see more than a couple of rows behind her; the people had packed themselves well together. She asked James to lift her up so she could see, and when she had placed herself on his shoulders, he stood up and a big smile reached her face.

"_Shit_! They're getting one hell of an audience, I doubt they ever had anything like this in Southmore."

"Let's just hope they're good," Rina said when Kushina came back to the ground again.

"You'll see," James grinned.

Ten minutes later, the stage was set and after a short speech from the man who had showed up earlier about how the band that was supposed to be there never showed up and they had found a promising trio to take over, all the stage workers left and were replaced by Minato, Keigo and Chad. It was surprising to see how confident they looked; the audience gave them an encouraging applause, and Minato only grinned at the large amount of people. He grabbed the electric guitar, placed the strap around his shoulder, and gave the guitar a quick stroke with a pick to test it before he grabbed the microphone.

"Thank you," he responded to the applause. "We're a band from Southmore, and you've probably never heard of us, but we're to help these guys out and have a good time. So just follow us in doing so."

The audience cheered once again of the motivational opening speech, and Minato gave Chad a nod to lead the first song. He hit the drum sticks against each other three times, and with the following performance, they delivered what they had promised: a good time.

It was obvious that they enjoyed being on stage. Minato connected well with the audience, there were laughter from both sides of the fence in front of the stage, and even though they had only had half an hour to plan a whole hour performance, it was clear that they were good at improvising. Keigo even led the audience to sing _I Fought the Law _in a sped-up, more punk version while they covered the instrumental tones and backed up the singing. It was an overall great mood. And one thing Kushina could add to the list of positive factors: she found Minato incredibly, _incredibly _handsome on stage. The confidence, the behaviour, and the fact that right now, among the men on the stage who gathered fans and admirers like doves pick up bread crumbs, one of them were hers.

When the hour passed and they had played their last song, Minato ended the concert by saying: "We love you guys. Good night!" before he added: "And get those two girls and that man over here, they're with us." He winked at Kushina as they left the stage and a guard came to help the three over the fence.

Backstage, a wild mood dominated. There were a lot of adrenaline mixed with joy, the girls jumped on them in bear hugs and champagne was popped to celebrate that their first big concert had been nothing but successful.

"You were awesome!" Rina exclaimed when she released Keigo, who had almost lost his balance at her attack. "Seriously, I can't believe you didn't want to let us hear you before!"

"This was a much better way, though, wasn't it?" Chad grinned innocently as he poured champagne in crystal glasses.

"A toast!" James said and raised his glass. "For you great, lame Southmore guys who just performed in front of hundreds of people before you managed to think out a name for your band."

They laughed and toasted, drank up the champagne and headed out of the room.

Outside, journalists were waiting with cameras and notebooks to interview the fresh but five year old band, and Kushina quickly excused herself and sneaked away quickly to not get caught in any of the photographies. Rina followed her, and they escaped towards the crowd.

"Minato, is it?" a news reporter with a cameraman trotting behind him said. He was tall with straw blonde hair in a tie that easily outperformed James'. "Yamanaka Inoichi, news reporter from _The Aussie_. How are you feeling right now?" The man shook hands with the four guys and started interrogating them about their first big concert and how it felt like to actually show up with a half hour's notice in front of an audience that big. After James made it clear that he had nothing to do with it even though he was the manager, Minato, Chad and Keigo answered the best they could and tried to not be distracted by all the cameras taking pictures of them from every possible angle and the flashing lights that came from them. The attention was almost overwhelming, unlike anything they had experienced before.

When the gang of four young men were released from the hungry crowd of journalist vultures, they went looking for the two girls. The last band was coming right up, and they wanted to find them so they could see the concert. But it was hard to spot them in the mass of people.

"Did they say where they went?" Chad asked the others.

"No, they just ran off," James replied.

They checked their standard beer stand (and bought beer, since they stopped by anyway) and asked the man who had given them their spot on the schedule, but without results. When they had searched for ten minutes, Keigo was beginning to get worried.

"I hope nothing's happened," he said.

"Oh, come on," Chad said. "We're in the middle of a large mass of people doing nothing but sitting around. What could possibly happen?"

"That's not what I meant," he said seriously and spilled beer on the ground. "I meant, what if they've been spotted?"

"Maybe the journalists saw her?" James said. "They've probably read about her.

"Doubt it, they weren't looking for her," Minato said. "More difficult to spot someone if you're not looking for them, and besides, she doesn't even have red hair anymore. That was probably the thing that was easiest to notice about her."

"And, you know, we left before they could see us."

They turned around at the voice and saw Rina standing behind them.

Keigo looked immensely relieved.

"Where's Kushina?" Chad asked.

"She met some old friends," Rina said. "Don't worry, they're not gonna give us in." They looked at where Rina was pointing, and saw Kushina sitting and talking with three other people.

"We just walked past there ten seconds ago," Minato said bewildered. "How did we not notice you?"

"That, my friend," Rina said and patted him on the shoulder. "Is because you are mildly drunk."

Minato waved dismissively with his hand and threw his empty glass in a nearby bin. Kushina got up and approached them when she spotted them.

"Next concert's gonna start in a few minutes," Chad said eagerly. "Come on, let's find a good spot."

"I'm just gonna go buy some more beer," Kushina said and headed off for the beer stand. The others left for the concert, but Minato decided to follow Kushina and buy one for himself.

"Who were those guys?" Minato asked curiously after they had ordered their pints.

"Just some friends from school," Kushina said. "I've known them my whole life. And that guy -" she pointed towards the guy who leaned against the tree, "was my childhood boyfriend for like a week when we were five."

"Oh, really," Minato said and whistled.

"Don't tell me you're the jealous type," Kushina teased when she received her glass of beer.

Minato grinned, grabbed her around the waist with his free hand and pushed her behind the beer stand.

"I'm the only one who's allowed to do this right now," he said and proved his statement by kissing her. "Why would I be jealous?"

Kushina giggled and kissed him back. When her hands had found their way to his neck, he led her further back towards a small, empty forest. They could hear the last band come on stage and the audience cheering, but figured they were too occupied at the moment to be watching a concert; instead, Minato did what he had not dared the last time they were alone like this: he sneaked his arms around her and slid his hands underneath her t-shirt. She did not react badly towards it, but instead pulled him closer and lightly yanked his hair. Minato did not care about the intake of alcohol this time; based on how Kushina had acted last time, it should be no problem doing it again, and he could instead control himself even more.

Except he lost control. Everything went fine to begin with; it was intense enough for Minato to enjoy, but maybe a bit too intense to keep it at this level. It all happened very fast; he started kissing her down the neck; the sound she made came not only of surprise and made all the blood in his head rush down; she responded by biting his neck, he pushed her up against a tree; she allowed his hand to roam further up her back, and when he stopped she decided to grab his arm, lead it -

Their alcohol intake was _way _too big for this.

* * *

A bird chirped. A stream of sunlight showed itself and landed on Minato's face. He groaned of being woken up so early, rolled over on the back and with his eyes still closed he fumbled with the zip on his well heated sleeping bag. His head was spinning (he was more likely still drunk) and sickness fell over him. He dozily rolled back and tried to fall asleep – but when he suddenly realized he had less space in the sleeping bag than usual, his eyes burst open and almost made him throw up.

Oh dear.

First of all, this was not his sleeping bag. His sleeping bag was green, this one was blue. Second of all, he was not inside the tent. He was inside the van. Thirdly, he had less space in the sleeping bag not because it was a smaller model, but because half of it was occupied by a girl. And fourth and last, he wore no clothes. Neither did she.

Things had gone _way _out of control last night. Not that they had gone all the way, but he could not even remember how the hell they got back to the tent last night. He realized, too late, how the alcohol had been in full control, and his mind started racing; would she regret it? Would she feel hurt, or even hate him? Would she actually _hate _him for it?

And there she was, lying right beside him, wearing nothing at all.

Minato groaned as lowly as his subconcious self allowed him to groan and pulled his hair angrily. He remembered how he had taken the first step of undressing them both, and how she had done the honors of taking them to third base. Not that it had not been good, and he was happy to hell that they did not take it even further, because the consequences he feared right now were bad enough.

He turned to look at the brown-haired girl sleeping deeply next to him. She breathed evenly, her face was so peaceful ... And when she would wake up, she would be infuriated, not to mention humiliated, going so easily for a man she had known for two weeks and waking up completely naked right next to him.

Minato's throat went incredibly dry. He sat quietly up, reached out for his boxers and got them on using impressively little space. He found half a bottle of water, emptied it in his mouth and put it down again; and managed to elbow Kushina on her head. She made a small noise, slowly opened her eyes and blinked a few times to relieve her eyes from the sudden light.

Minato froze. Shit.

The girl yawned, blinked a few more times and looked up at Minato. It did not take long for a deep red blush to develop in her cheeks, and she quickly pulled the sleeping bag close up to her neck when she also noticed that she was as naked as the day she was born.

"Here," Minato said quickly and handed her his t-shirt, which was the first that caught his eyes. She did not take it, instead she did something Minato had not expected at all: she smiled. With her eyes set directly on his. She crawled closer to him, kissed him on the neck and giggled.

Minato blinked.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said dumbly.

"Good night, then," she said, closed her eyes and sneaked an arm around him. Minato lay obediently down and tried to go through it all in his head again. She had been elbowed in her face, been awakened naked, _smiled_, kissed him and then said good night.

He promised himself one ting. He _had _to start calming down.

* * *

Later that morning when everyone had slowly dragged themselves out in the air and gathered around the bag of sandwiches Rina (did that girl never get hungover?) had walked ten minutes to get, James came with sad news.

"We don't have much money left," he said. "We have enough for a few more days, but we need money on the way home, too."

"Guess we're going back soon, then," Keigo said drowsily, still half-asleep and slowly chewing on his chicken sandwich. Kushina, on the other hand, was more worried. She was quiet for a long time after that, thinking about the thing she had delayed working out for so long: how to approach her parents. Maybe she should just not go back ... She could. But the police were not done searching for her, she knew her parents would pay large amounts of dollars to keep them going. She would be forever on the run, but was that worse than facing her angry, no, infuriated parents?

She sighed. She never had many options.

"Kushina?"

She looked up. Rina looked at her with a worried expression.

Kushina replied by taking another bite of sandwich. It was not much of a reply, but it showed that she did not know what to say. Rina of all people would understand why.

But before Rina got the chance to ask and Kushina got the chance to take another bite of the sandwich, a horrifying noise came slowly, more and more audible towards them. It was talking. And Kushina knew very well what the source of the talking was.

She turned slowly. By seeing the people who came towards them, their faces set on her, she felt like she stopped breathing. Two of them were angry, the rest of them serious, and her own was pale. She considered getting up, throw her sandwich away and run, but her body was frozen, and no matter how much her brain ordered her to get the fuck away, her legs would not move, and her hands were only holding firmly on to the baguette.

It was over.

* * *

The four men were silently driving on a lone, long highway. It was late in the evening, and as soon as they had been released from the interrogation room with too little air, they had packed their bags, taken down the tent, fueled the car and left The Core. James were driving, Keigo was constantly trying to find a song he wanted to listen to on the cassette player they had installed but had not yet listened to the same song for more than twenty seconds, and the other two sat in the back seats, looking out the windows with expressionless faces. In Minato's hand was a note, a small note which was now curled up to a tiny ball, containing Rina's quick handwriting. It was a message from Kushina.

The hours passed, in which Keigo and James had switched places and Chad had fallen asleep. Minato was tired, but had no luck in sleeping. He had too much racing in his mind, yet it felt like his head was empty. No words, no images, just a black wall. And still, his head hurt from everything that was bothering him.

Around midnight, the wall in his mind was going to get even blacker.

They entered a city they recognized, and slowly drove through it. Minato recognized the bar. From the windows he could see the bar coutner. Two young men were sitting at the end, while four girls sat on the table next to it, regularly giving the men gazes.

"Wait, stop," Minato said. Keigo jumped a little in his seat; nobody had said a word for hours. James pulled over and was about to ask Minato what the deal was, but Minato had jumped out of the van almost before the van had stopped and was now standing in a phone booth. He was looking through a thick book with yellow pages. After a moment, he returned.

"Can we go to Fort Street?"

They looked at him.

"I take it that's where she lives?" Chad said. There was so need to specify who _she _was. Minato nodded.

"Sure," James said. "I'm not sure if it's a good idea, though."

Minato did not reply, but he knew James was right. But he could not go home without replying to the note.

After about fifteen minutes, they entered Fort Street. The properties were huge with large, white-painted houses, big front yards and expensive cars. It made Minato realize just how different lives he and Kushina were living.

At the end of the road was a similar house with blue frames.

They came closer.

James suddenly hit the breaks.

Minato's face fell. "No ..." he whispered, got out of the van and started to slowly run towards the large, white trucks that were starting up and casting bright lights at him. One drove off, the other came after; Minato saw her face, for only a few seconds. The third and last truck followed, and they disappeared.

The note fell out of his hand. It hit the dirty ground with a noise that did not reach his ears. He looked at the distance, even after the trucks, no ..

... even after _she _was gone.


	8. VIII: Castle of Cardboard Boxes

**VIII: Castle of Cardboard Boxes**

_Year 1981_

Not even a long run – not a jog, a _run_ -, a cold shower and a big lunch could set Minato's mind on track. The homework sat not-so-inviting at the desk in the messy living room, the coffee was steaming and he knew he had a lot to finish off before the week was over, but he could not focus.

Not for one second.

The reasons for his restlessness were many. First of all, his flat mate was moving out, so he had to find a replacement to keep up the rent. Second of all, he hated living alone, and he knew he was going to come home to an empty apartment for at least a few weeks ahead. Third of all, Chad was finally coming to visit again, and even though that meant he had to finish his homework for his arrival the next evening, his mind was racing with both anticipation and excitement. And a bit of depression for his soon gone roommate.

Plus, that day was only two days away. He never looked forward to that day.

With his feet resting on the desk and his pen being chewed at, Minato looked out of the window and stretched. He had been sitting there for two and a half hours, but had not managed to write much. He looked down at the task's decription again.

_Describe the elements of progressive rock and its agents. Discuss its influence during the 70's. Use two examples of bands performing progressive rock and compare with two different bands with genres of your choice._

Sigh. Why had he not just assumed that making success as a rock band to begin with would get him far?

He looked at the section he had managed to write. And sighed once more.

Truth was, he enjoyed the life as a student. Always something to keep him occupied with, a social life he was satisfied with, and at his fourth year of studies, he had a lot more freedom than usual. The only problem was that he always managed to find ways to keep him more busy than he could cope with.

When his flat mate came out of the shower and showed up in the living room, Minato was happy for an excuse to take a break from the task.

"Getting any way with that?" Matthew asked as he sat down by a worn out closet and started pulling things out from the lowest shelves. The top ones were already emptied for his stuff.

"Nah," Minato replied. "I probably won't have it finished until next week."

"Ah, well, at least professor Ian is nice enough to give you some extra time. I mean, he practically adores you."

Minato snorted. "Maybe I should take advantage of that." He got up from the chair that had during the hours become harder and harder. "You joining later, mate?"

"Think so."

"Cool. Noodles?"

"Sure."

"Cool."

Minato set the water to boil and got two bowls out of the kichen cabinet and two pairs of chopsticks from a drawer. When the water was boiling, he dropped the stiff lump of noodles in the casserole and started to fry bits of chicken and some frozen vegetables he had prepared beforehand. Matthew was not surprised by the already used plate on the table and the new lunch coming up; Minato ate a lot.

"Dude, this girl came asking for you today," Matthew said drowsily with his nose down in a box of papers.

"Who?" Minato asked, fearing the worst.

"Patricia or something, is that her name?"

Minato grimaced. "Not again ... Seriously, I've told her one hundred times I'm not interested in anything, but she keeps nagging at me."

"You're too nice, Minato," Matthew sighed. "Just tell her you're sorry, but you're not into her, so she can just stay away from you."

Minato chewed on his lip. "Don't wanna be too harsh on her, I mean ... She didn't do anything _wrong_, if you catch my drift."

Matthew just shook his head at Minato's insecurity with girls. The thing he could not understand was that a guy like Minato, who probably had a proposal for a relationship once a week, never managed to find out how to reject a girl. He had told him this, at least as many times as Minato had told Patricia he was not interested, and the response was always that he exaggerated, and that Minato had not had fifty-two girlfriends in one year.

Okay, so he exaggerated. But four girlfriend proposals during half a year? And he had said yes to all of them, but none of them worked out very well. The longest he lasted was three weeks, until he figured out he was not interested. And of course, Minato had already figured out how that made himself look, so now every girl was interested in pushing him into someting hilariously serious. They just thought he was scared, and they were probably right, Matthew thought.

"Oh, this isn't mine -" Matthew started when he grabbed a few letters from yet another box, but broke off. He picked something up from the box. "Who's this?"

Minato turned to see what Matthew was asking about and stopped mid-air while attempting to give the bits of chicken more butter to fry at. Unaware that the chicken was beginning to stick to the bottom of the frying pan and badly needed the butter, he stared at the thing Matthew was holding up.

He had not seen that photograph for three years.

"Dude, your chicken's burning," Matthew said as lazily as ever. Minato turned back to the chicken, which was now burned to the pan, and clumcily shook the butter of the knife and scraped the food free. He turned down the heat a little and continued to tend to his food. Without looking at Matthew, he spoke.

"And old friend," he simply said. "Haven't seen her for a few years, though."

Matthew looked at the picture again.

"Man, you look like a teenager," he said. "And she's pretty. What's her name?"

The face Minato had tried to keep neutral revealed the slightest of a warm smile.

"Kushina."

Matthew looked suspiciously at him.

"Hey, mate ..." he said, and when Minato finally replied with a _'hmm?'_, he continued. "I've never seen you smile like that when talking about girls before."

Minato shot him a quick look.

Damn Matthew and his knowledge. Even though he had kept things for himself for a long time, Matthew would notice something was up if a subject reminded him of it. Maybe it was a skill that came with being gay.

He turned off the stove, mixed the noodles and the chicken and sat down by the table with a glass of water. Matthew joined him, photograph still with him. He lay it down on the table.

"She _is _really pretty," Minato said as he looked at the picture, as though he had forgotten. He smiled at her hair and the story behind it. He had almost forgotten. He had tried to displace every thought of her after he came home from The Core, but now he realized he had thought about her every day. "She wasn't like any other girl I'd met. Most of them were, you know ..."

When Minato could not find the right formulation, Matthew decided to help. "Like Patricia?"

Minato nodded in agreement while he chewed on a fried broccoli. He told Matthew about how they had met in Aretown City, and how she and Rina had decided to join them to The Core to escape Kushina's parents.

"After about two weeks we were busted. Some old lady had been stalking us for a couple of days and realized with her senile head that she was the girl on the front page, so she called the police. Kushina's parents came with them, and ..." Minato shuddered as he remembered the scene when her parents had dragged her away from their small camp and how they had screamed at each other. And at him. It had not been pretty.

"I never got to say goodbye. They drove home, and so did we. And then they moved. Dunno where. Never heard from her since."

Minato looked down on his food as he played with some noodles with his chopsticks.

"Aah ..." Matthew said. Minato looked questioningly at him. "I get it."

"Get what?"

Matthew smiled sadly. "The only reason you never found interest in any other girl was because you never got over this one," he said and tapped a finger on the girl at the picture. Minato scratched his three days old stubbles while he thought about this.

"No, but I tried, though," he confessed with a shrug.

Matthew patted him on the head. "Screw girls. Let's have a good guy's night out. Our only worry will be how much money we've got left for beer."

He seemed to be right, and when Minato woke up the next morning, he did not look forward to head off to work.

* * *

Seeing Chad again was a great relief in his otherwise pretty scheduled weeks. He had not seen him for the last four months, but talking to him was as natural as ever, and at least he did not have to go alone to the graveyard. It was not only boring to drive all the way back to Southmore twice a day alone, but it was still difficult to see the families of Keigo and James standing before their graves and mourn. The car accident was still written in their faces.

Back in his childhood house after the visit to the graveyard, Minato felt extremely tired. Visiting Keigo and James had that effect on him. But seeing his mother and brother again was alway something he could not do enough times, especially when Matt was growing sky high but still was as nice a thirteen year old kid could be. Minato felt a little sorry for him; Matt had never had a brother to actually _play _with, since thirteen years separated him from Minato and he had mostly been to school or work while Matt grew up. Minato knew how it was, having grown up without any siblings until he was thirteen himself.

They sat by the kitchen table and delayed their leave back to Pools. Boss was resting his head on Minato's knee while he subconsciously scratched his black, soft ear.

"I keep having these dreams about a tree," he said casually. "It's kinda annoying, really. I always climb and climb but there's no end."

"Maybe you're stressed," Chad said. "I remember my mother was interested in dream analysis a long time ago, and she said repeats are a sign of stress."

"Sounds reasonable," Minato said, thinking back on the past few exhausting weeks. And he was not going to rest for another while; his evenings were mostly occupied with schoolwork, and his days off were occupied with work. And in his only spare time, he helped Matthew sort their stuff and clean up.

"Minato, you're too skinny," his mother said worriedly.

"What? I eat, like, seven times a day."

His mother snorted and placed plates with fried rice in front of him, Chad and Matt. "At least someone was blessed with the ability to burn everything they eat."

Minato smiled innocently and started to dig in the rice.

"Oh, by the way, Minato," Chad began. "You're not gonna believe who I met the other day."

"Who? Joe Strimmer?"

Chad shook his head.

"Steven Tyler?"

"Shut up," Chad said. "Not a celebrity." He placed his glass of water down on the table after a sip while Minato was kindly shutting up and waiting for the answer.

"I met Rina."

Minato blinked. "What?"

"Yeah. She was driving through Burrow. Going to her parents'. Didn't get to talk much, though."

Minato found it somehow difficult to breath properly. "How is she?"

"Fine," Chad said casually. "She's got a pretty good job as a cook. Sous chef, in fact."

"Wow, not bad."

Minato was silent for a moment. Then -

"Did she mention ..."

Chad smiled. "Thought you'd ask. Yeah, she did. Apparently, Kushina's been traveling for a while."

Minato chuckled. So she did not go for the studies her parents so badly wanted her to do. Chad seemed to be thinking the same.

"She didn't say much else, though. She said she'd love to come over one day and say hello."

"Nice," Minato replied. _But without Kushina_, he thought. Not when she was out traveling, who knew how long she would be out there. And maybe that was for the best. He honestly had no idea how he would handle the red-head standing at his door step. Or was she a brunette now ...?

"Does she still have brown hair?" Minato blurted out while examining a rice that stuck to his chopstick.

"No," Chad replied.

Minato did not know if he had expected a yes or no, but he had not expected him to know the answer.

"Rina thought it might interest you," Chad smirked.

Minato snorted.

They spent the rest of the afternoon talking about none Kushina- and Rina-related things, and as the clock neared six, Minato and Chad headed back to Pools.

After about an hour of driving, Minato felt like he needed the subject to come up again.

"Matthew found and old photo of me and Kushina from The Core the other day," he said. "Haven't seen it in years."

"Memories sure come up, don't they," Chad said. "Rina haven't changed much, she looked pretty much the same as I remember her. But man, she's young for her job! I mean, how old is she?"

"Uh, twentyfour, I think."

Chad sighed. "I feel old."

"Tell me about it."

Minato took a left and followed the sign that said _Pools_.

"Do you miss her?" Chad asked.

Minato took a while to answer that. But what else to say than the simple honesty?

"Yeah," Minato said and looked at Chad. And he could swear that behind the smile that was supposed to be supportive, he saw some kind of weird expression on his face.

Chad had a non-existing poker face. And that could only mean there was more to it.

"What about it?" Minato asked.

"Just wondering," Chad shrugged. "I mean, it's not like we've talked about any of them for the last few years, but ... I know how much you liked her."

Minato smiled. "She's hard to forget."

"Yeah."

"Oh, I took the photo with me, by the way," Minato chuckled and dug inside the pocket of his jeans. He took out a pretty small, black and white photograph and gave it to Chad. Who laughed.

"Look how young you look!" he grinned. It was true, Minato had spent the first few years in his twenties looking like a teenager.

After a couple of hours drive, they finally arrived in Pools. Exhausted of driving for so long, Minato went straight to bed; but he did not have a chance in the world to fall asleep. His mind was stuck with thougths that kept him awake. And when the sky became lighter and the temperature quickly rose, Minato finally slipped into an uneasy sleep filled with trees and leaves and a laugh and a girl with long, red hair.

* * *

Chad had left after three days, and Minato was back to his daily routines again. Get up, have breakfast, go to school, come home, eat twice, help Matthew pack his stuff, eat dinner, go to work, go home, eat, go to bed. Hopefully, he could get some school work done in between all the food.

Today was a little different. Matthew was moving out in one day. He had rented a truck to drive all his stuff to his Dad's the next day, and then he would head straight for the airport.

It was safe to say that Minato was in a weird mood. He did not want to act sour all day, but he could not help the depression that sneaked in on him. So along with the sadness and well-acted joy, he also felt the stress that came with trying to find a new flat mate. It was going to be some long, few weeks.

They were carrying boxes down to the truck, which was tiresome, considering the stairs up to the fifth floor.

"Where're you gonna dump all this stuff at your Dad's?" Minato asked bewildered when he looked at the stack of boxes they had made so far.

"In the basement, I guess," Matthew smiled innocently. They headed back up again. "Dad's house is pretty huge, so it won't bother him if I place my stuff somewhere there for a year or two."

Minato chuckled. "If I were to dump all my stuff at Mum's I'd fill up half the house."

"You can rent these storages, too," Matthew said. "But that's pretty expensive, especially if you rent them for a long time. By the way, I put some boxes in your room, too."

While Matthew continued to free the living room from all his boxes, Minato went to his own bedroom to find all the boxes Matthew had left there. And as Matthew was not a particularly organized person, the boxes were hidden everywhere. Minato opened his closet, the drawers, looked underneath the bed, took boxes down from his nightstand -

He paused a little when he saw to pieces of paper on the nightstand. He had completely forgotten about the dream from a few days ago, but he had tried to draw parts of it when he woke up. And he was not so sure that it was the stress that shaped his dream anymore. He had the constant feeling that he had had that dream many years ago, and he had also realized who the girl was. Not that she looked the same; her hair was much longer, so long it reached her to her feet. He could see her in the top of the tree, but the leaves hid her face, and he was further down the trunk trying to reach her; but every time he grabbed a branch it seemed to break, shake him off, anything that could prevent him from climbing higher. It was frustrating. And in those dreams, it seemed like nothing mattered, as long as he could reach the girl; his greatest desire.

Had Kushina been so dear to him she haunted him?

Probably. Enough to make him go search the box with the picture again, though not for the sake of the picture. He had found a small piece of curled paper. It contained only a few words. _I'll see you soon. Love you. _At first, Minato had thought Kushina meant she would try to run away again and go to Southmore. But he had not seen her once since The Core, so he had given up on that hope.

"Hello?"

The voice came from the hallway. Minato did not make a move to greet the quest, however; he had a disturbing idea of who it was.

Matthew answered the already open door.

"Uh, hi," the girl stammered. Yep. That was Tina, alright. The girl he knew who was, but had never spoken a word to. She had come up to him a few times (most often at the bar; she seemed to prefer talking to him while tipsy instead of sober at the university), but when she spoke to him, she ran off before he could answer, as though it was the most humiliating thing she had ever done. He remembered her mostly because of her instant blushes. And her voice was pretty, even though she always seemed to have difficulties talking.

"Hi," Matthew answered. When the girl did not reply, he continued: "Are you looking for Minato"?

"What?" the girl blurted out, as though she had not expected that question.

"Are you looking for a room to rent?" Matthew laughed.

"Uh ... I guess."

What, Tina was going to rent Matthew's room?

Matthew told the girl Minato was hiding in his bedroom, and he heard hesitating footsteps.

Well, this could build up certain problems.

_If I just act a bit busy ... _Minato thought in a slight panic, and started doing the least productive thing he could come up with: stacking all of Matthews cardboard boxes on top of each other.

The footsteps stopped outside the door to his bedroom. Minato lifted another box and placed it on top of another. When the girl did not say a word, he turned around.

The first thing that hit him, was that she still had her round cheeks. And that her hair was not brown anymore, so he concluded that Chad was not being a liar. They looked at each other for ten long seconds. Then -

"I'm gonna kill Rina."

The thing that surprised Minato the most, was not necessarily the fact that she was standing there at all, but the fact that his reply came out way more natural than he should expect from himself.

"It's been four years, and you come with a death threat?"

"Did you set this up?" Kushina asked and eyed him suspiciously.

"What?" Minato laughed. "No, I thought you were traveling? Or so I heard."

Kushina looked around his room while she scratched her head.

"I did not expect this for the world," she said, but when she looked at him, she smiled. That certainly had an effect on Minato.

"So Rina told you were I lived, did she?" Minato asked and sat down on a box labeled 'books'. Kushina took a few steps inside his rooms and looked at the walls.

"Well, she forgot to mention the fact that you live here," she said and noticed the picture of Keigo and James. Her eyes told him she had heard about the accident. "I guess we were set up by both her and Chad." She showed him a note with his address. "I heard there was a room for rent here."

"There is," Minato said and leaned back against his closet. "What're you moving here for?"

"Work," Kushina smiled and dropped her bag on the floor before she took off her jacket. "Kinda low on money from all the traveling. This city was the first I came up with."

"Well, you better have enough money to keep up the rent. Mrs. Laura already slaughtered me once for being a day late."

Kushina looked at him for while in surprise. "Wait, you're suggesting that I can stay here?" she asked.

"Why not?" Minato shrugged. "I wouldn't mind."

Kushina continued to eye him. But then she smiled.

"I've missed you," she said honestly. Minato felt his face go warm, but looked at it as a good thing that she had not completely forgotten about him while he had been sitting in that apartment almost every day for the last couple of years without managing to keep her out of his head.

Minato got up and stretched out his arms, and Kushina accepted the hug with a big smile.

"I'ts good to see you again," Minato said.

"I'm still gonna kill Rina," Kushina replied. Minato chuckled and released her.

"Nice stack of boxes, Minato," Matthew said from the door frame. "Trying to make a castle?"

Minato was just about to ask Matthew how long he had been standing there and why he was such a creeper when he reached out to shake hands with Kushina.

"Hi, I'm Matthew."

"Kushina," she replied. A light seemed to turn on inside Matthew's head. Minato made a move to suggest that if Matthew said anything he would be hanged and/or beheaded, so Matthew found it wiser to start carrying out boxes from the bedroom than to blurt out with the fact that, oh, but did he not remember her from somewhere?

"Look, I gotta go," Kushina said and picked up her jacket and bag. "What're you doing tonight?"

"One last night out with Matthew and some people," Minato replied. "Wanna join?"

Kushina smiled. "Sure."

They named the time and place and agreed that Rina should join too before Kushina left. It took a minute or two for Minato to realize what had happened afterwards.

"Cute girl," Matthew winked. "Just don't leave me hangin' tonight."

"Why would I turn my back on our bromance?" Minato grinned.

"Because _you_," Matthew said and pointed at him. "Are a fucking soft, hopeless man who's madly in love."

Minato found himself in a hilariously good mood for the rest of the day.

* * *

It took three days for Kushina to move in. The small apartment was again filled with boxes hidden everywhere, which made Minato feel like things were alright again. Those past nights had been way too quiet for his taste, and to wake up without the sound of frying bacon and a cheerful _'good morning'_ had been a blow underneath the belt. But he was not alone anymore, and Kushina's new way to greet him in the morning would seem to suit him very well.

He woke up early one morning to get ready for school. He had to finish his assignment before lunch, and even though it normally would help him write when he had less luggage on his shoulders, he found himself a bit too occupied helping Kushina finding her way through the apartment, and most of all, catching up again. They had found a good tone again, and the cookin lessons Rina had given Kushina was a blessing to Minato.

He rolled out of his bed, found a pair of jeans and threw a grey hoodie on.

"Aw ..." he mumbled when the zipper broke in half. He made a mental note of going down to Mr. Harrison and get it fixed before school.

Once he had opened the door to his bedroom, a delightful smell hit him. He felt how hollow his stomach was and could do nothing but walk towards the kitchen. And the sight from the door frame that morning was a bit different than the usual nothing-but-boxers-Matthew scraping eggs out of the frying pan. Kushina was standing by the oven making breakfast with two plates ready at the table. Her hair revealed that she had not been up for long, and so did her clothes: a large t-shirt, a black pair of panties and a pair of thick, warm woollen socks.

"Morning," she said cheerfully when she saw him. He noticed her cheerfulness was a bit overdone, but then again, Kushina had rarely been a morning person.

"Uh, morning," he replied. Kushina nodded towards the table, and he sat down. She filled his and her own plate with food, and he started to dig in.

"You're awesome, did I tell you that?" Minato said gratefully when he swallowed the first bit of egg and bacon.

"Not enough," Kushina replied, sat down, placed her legs on a nearby chair and picked up an already opened newspaper. She blinked a little. "Is this old?" she asked and looked at the date. 1977. Minato smiled innocently at her, and she glared suspiciously back at him.

"Just some old newspaper I found yesterday," Minato shrugged and continued to eat.

"Why have you kept ..." She broke off when she looked at the front page. She looked back at Minato, who simply shrugged once more. And then she hit him. Hard. With the newspaper.

"Why do you have this?" Kushina asked loudly to be heard between Minato's laughs.

"No, really, I found it yesterday," Minato grinned. "I didn't know I had it, it was in a box with stuff from my garage in Southmore."

Kushina looked back at her face on the front page. "That's ... wow, a long time a go," she said.

"I'm curious," Minato began. "Did you travel to run away again, or did you run away first?"

It took a moment for Kushina to understand the difference. "Uhm ... I ran away first," she replied. "I left a note to my parents that time. It said they couldn't keep me forever by law, and if they tried to pay the police to investigate again, I'd go to court. And I'd win."

"Where did you go?" Minato asked between a mouthful of sausage.

Kushina looked back at the picture of her. She smiled and shook her head silently, as though the answer was stupid.

However, Minato did not laugh when he heard the answer.

"I ran away after two months. First, I went to Burrow and checked in at a hotel. Rina came to see me, but she went back after a few days, because her parents came home. And after that ... I took a bus to Southmore."

Silence.

When Minato found nothing to say, Kushina continued.

"I wanted to keep the promise I wrote to you on that note. Remember the note?"

Minato nodded. He had not told her that he had kept it.

"But when I got there, it was too late. You had moved." Kushina looked at him for a moment. "Is it weird for me to say that I was disappointed?"

"No," Minato said immediately. "I am too."

Kushina put the newspaper down on the table. "I was actually furious that I'd missed you. So I spent the money I had to go to New Zealand, and I started working there. When I had enough money ... well, you could say I ran away again. I wanted to get away from everything. So I went traveling."

Minato nodded again. He understood. He had already guessed that.

"And of course, Rina knew ... That's probably why she set me up." Kushina smiled at him.

While looking at her, Minato put his fork down. "Is it weird for me to say I never really moved on?"

Silence. Then -

Kushina started laughing. "Yes, that is a bit weird," she grinned. Minato looked indigntantly at her.

"But hey," she added. "I'm weird that way too."

* * *

A week later, Minato was woken up in the middle of the night by two cars honking at each other. He groaned and turned over. He had had such a good sleep. They had been pretty much dreamless lately; none of them contained a tree he could not climb, anyway. He had never finished climbing that tree in those dreams. But it did not really matter; as he drew himself closer to the red-haired girl next to him and sneaked and arm around her, he felt like he had reached the top, and that was good enough.

* * *

_**I would like to thank all of you who left reveiws, either on deviantart or here and fav'd my story. It was my first, and it was fun to write!**_

_**Check my profile for more stories! :)  
**_


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